We
shall only say here that aerial navigation should be divided into
two kinds with balloons, and without balloons. In the first
case, it is limited to the study of aerial currents, and to the
art of rising to those currents which suit the direction of the
voyage undertaken. The balloon is not the master of the
atmosphere; on the contrary, it is its powerless slave. In the
second case, the discovery of Montgolfier is useless; and the
question is, to find out a new machine capable of flying in the
air, and at the same time heavier than the air. Birds are,
without doubt, the best models to study. But with what force
shall we replace LIFE? The air-boat of M. Pline seems to us one
of the best ideas; but the working of it presents many
difficulties. Let us find a motive power at once light and
powerful (aluminium and electricity, for example), and we will
have definitively conquered the empire of the air.
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Wonderful Balloon Ascents;
or the Conquest of the Skies, by F. (Fulgence) Marion
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