Once the war begun, he called reasons of every kind to his aid, reasons it must be acknowledged often specious and of bad metal.
Firstly, Barbicane was violently attacked about his figures.

Nicholl tried to prove by A + B the falseness of his formulae, and he accused him of being ignorant of the rudimentary principles of ballistics.
Amongst other errors, and according to Nicholl's own calculations, it was impossible to give any body a velocity of 12,000 yards a second.

He sustained, algebra in hand, that even with that velocity a projectile thus heavy would never pass the limits of the terrestrial atmosphere.

It would not even go eight leagues! Better still.

Granted the velocity, and taking it as sufficient, the shot would not resist the pressure of the gas developed by the combustion of 1,600,000 pounds of powder, and even if it did resist that pressure, it at least would not support such a temperature; it would melt as it issued from the Columbiad, and would fall in red-hot rain on the heads of the imprudent spectators.
Barbicane paid no attention to these attacks, and went on with his work.
Then Nicholl considered the question in its other aspects.