I hastily computed the distance by an air-line, and placed the speed
of the craft at some thirty miles an hour. That seemed reasonable
enough. Indeed, the whole statement cohered marvellously well; all the
parts harmonized with each other and looked plausible, even
reasonable, as I have said, except the grand fact itself, which was
too momentous for belief. But why should it not be true? What new
achievement of the human mind ought to startle one in this nineteenth
century, after having witnessed the wonders of steam and electro-
magnetism? I determined to sift the matter, but immediately remembered
that all the knowledge I had of it had been imparted to me in the
strictest confidence. The ingenious inventors, as was clearly their
right, had reserved it to themselves to choose the time and way of
making their invention public, when it was to break on the world, some
fine morning, like the discovery of a second moon performing its orbit
round the earth. I sunk into a brown study.

In the evening, Mr. Bonflon called again, as he had promised. He
brought with him a large roll of plans and drawings, for the purpose
of illustrating more clearly the principles and method of construction
and operation of his aerial ship. They were projected on a large
scale, and the workmanship was superb. Months of hard labor by a
finished draughtsman must have been devoted to their execution. "And
what an additional outlay of time and brains," thought I, "must have
been required, to devise the scheme and construct the machine itself,
so as to elevate the ingenious ideal into an absolute working
reality!" These drawings, Mr. Bonflon informed me, were duplicates of
others which had been privately deposited in the Patent-Office at
Washington.

The one which chiefly attracted my attention was that which
represented the monster steamer complete, with all its appendages and
complement of passengers, in its majestic flight through the air.
Below it were the drifting clouds. Its course lay quite above the
storms and hurricanes and conflicting wind-currents which vex the
lower strata of the atmosphere, where it comes in contact with the
earth's uneven surface, and is kept in motion by the contractions and
expansions of alternate cold and heat, and is broken and set whirling
by the forests and gorges and mountain-tops among which it is
compelled to force its way. Above all this, Mr. Bonflon assured me, as
aeronauts report, there is ever a smooth, quiet atmospheric sea.

"But how is life to be sustained for any considerable time in that
rarefied medium?" inquired I, "when it is asserted that even in
ascending high mountains, the texture of the soft parts of the human
body becomes so loose and flabby from diminished atmospheric pressure
as to cause one, so to speak, to sweat blood,--which oozes perceptibly
from the mouth and nose and eyes, and even from under the finger-
nails?"