“Cyrus Lacey! I am ashamed of you. You are a disgrace to Belmont! Don’t you know that the discharge of the gun would blow the projectile to atoms ?”

“But, Dr. Haverfield, Belmont is not disgraced. As president of this great university, you should feel proud of your student. I have no intentions of using gunpowder, neither shall I use dynamite, nitro-glycerine or T. N. T. I have other means of propulsion.”

“I should hope so ! What means of propulsion do you have up your sleeve?”

“Electrical energy. Do you know that a modern power plant produces enough energy every hour to send a projectile weighing fifty tons to the moon!”

“I will have to take your word for it; but how are you going to utilize it?”

“By the simplest means possible — electromagnets in a magnetic gun. The principle is that the space car on a track will be magnetized and attracted to and repulsed by a series of magnets.

“Let us place some magnets in a straight line. The steel object will be a miniature space-flyer. We will give each magnet a maximum of current and, if there are enough magnets, the projectile will reach a speed far beyond the power of the mind to appreciate.

“Let us arrange the magnets so that the projectile is drawn to them, but when it reaches them, the current will be reversed. What is the result? After the projectile passes it, the magnet becomes repulsive and we have double the power with the same number of magnets. This, in miniature, describes my electromagnetic gun...

(Electromagnetic Railgun Launch from 'The Moon Conquerors' by Romans)