Chapter 5
Part V of Anno Domini 2071. The following morning I was down very early, and, having enjoyed my breakfast, I walked slowly towards the place where I expected to meet my companions of the preceding day. No guide was required in this apparently immense labyrinth, for nothing indeed was easier than to find one's way.
All the streets, squares, etc. were namely marked, not by names as formerly, but by a particular set of figures, which, with the assistance of a map, directed me to any given spot. All that was required to know was two figures, indicating the point of destination, pretty much as with the latitude and longitude at sea.
I was still a considerable distance away from it when I caught sight of a vast building, on which I read an inscription in gigantic characters. General Balloon Company. I had expected to find our starting point in some open space, or at least in one of the squares, and was therefore not a little surprised to see that this building was situated
in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods. Perhaps thought I, this is merely the office where tickets have to be taken, but when I got nearer, I perceived that the building differed essentially from other houses in this respect, that it had an entirely flat roof, which contained a kind of conveyance, not unlike a ship, but the precise outline of which I could not discover, owing to the
glass vault over the street. Bacon and Miss Fantasia were already on the spot, and after the customary morning greetings, we entered to secure our seats. The first thing now was to be weighed, for the price of the passage naturally depended on the volume of our bodily organization.
It need not be said that the young lady came off cheapest. We then passed through a door into a small parlor, or waiting room, where we found a few more passengers. In the center of the room I noticed a staircase, and up at the ceiling a kind of trap. Against the walls were several cushioned seats, as in a first class railway carriage.
After a short time the whole apartment seemed to move. I heard a gentle rustling along the walls, as if something were sliding down the paper hangings. But even before I had time to think on the subject, there was a lowering of the trap in the ceiling, and a cheerful greeting of, Welcome a-hi, ladies and gentlemen.
We got upstairs through the aperture, and found ourselves on the flat roof of the building, but precisely underneath the airship. We entered, however, the open trap constructed in the latter, for we soon found out that the weather was bitterly cold. This, unfortunately, prevented me from becoming more intimately acquainted with the outward
appearance of the balloon, and with its locomotive powers. On the other hand, Apple opportunity was afforded us for examining its internal arrangements. As soon as we came into what I can but term the hold of the vessel, Bacon called my attention to the long narrow cylinder which ran across the whole length of the ship. Therein lies, said he, the whole secret of aeronautics.
In order that I may explain this to you, I must remind you of this, that it was formerly impossible to steer any balloon except before the wind. An ordinary vessel, when the keel cuts through the water, can sail half or quarter wind, because she moves in the two intermediate matters of air and water, the latter offering a greater resistance than the former, and thereby supporting the vessel in her movements,
to which must be added that the resistance operates in a definite direction, namely in that of the motion of the ship, so that by supplying the craft with a rudder or helm one is able to turn her at pleasure to the right or the left. But, continued Bacon, this becomes quite a different matter when a vessel is merely surrounded by air.
Driven onward by the wind, which means carried along by the atmospheric current, she meets with no resistance, and therefore lacks every point of support whereby to turn herself. She will always offer the largest of her sides to the wind, which falls upon it at right angles. Just the same is on a light piece of paper or cloth whirled around by the wind.
In order then to render such balloon voyage as possible at all, it was necessary, in the first place, to afford the machine its required support, its resistance, and this was accomplished in the following manner. The long cylinder which runs along the hull of the ship is a bar of malleable iron, surrounded by a spiral copper wire which has been coated with an insulating substance.
If now a voltaic current is made to pass along that wire, the bar becomes the most powerful electromagnet, which, when free in its movements, like the needle of a compass, adopts a direction from south to north, with a slight easterly deviation, and also a certain inclination. When driven out of its natural direction by another power, the needle will endeavor to resume its original inclination.
As now, the magnet and the vessel are so joined together as virtually to form but one body, the balloon, or rather the ship, is in itself a giant compass. The inclination is removed just the same as with the needle of the compass. One has merely to alter the center of gravity, and this can be done in several ways. Thus, all that remains is the direction in the magnetic meridian.
If now, the wind blows in the same direction that one wishes to travel, then the apparatus has not worked. That is to say, no current has passed through the wire. Should the wind, however, be unpropertious, then the ship is at once changed into a magnet. For example, suppose the wind to be due west, and the sails to be placed at right angles
with the wind. Then the vessel will be driven neither east nor northward, but towards a point intermediate. Just as a vessel at sea, when pushed north by the current of the water, and westward by the wind, does not follow either of these directions exclusively, but an intermediate one.
It is not difficult, therefore, to perceive that the aeronaut, by the proper joint working of his sails and of the electromagnetic apparatus, is enabled to turn his ship into any direction he chooses. Nor is that all. The apparatus also serves as a helm or rudder, for as soon as I press this knob, the current
is at once reversed. The north pole becomes the south pole, and vice versa. It stands to reason that the vessel must turn under the circumstances, and, of course, according to pleasure. For at any moment, the helmsman may interrupt the current, whereby the ship ceases to be
a magnet. Now, as indeed at sea, the case may be that the wind is too strong, and that the power of the magnet insufficient to properly govern the airship. In that case, we have recourse to those energy ethics of which I spoke yesterday. These tend to set in circular motion the four winged screws which you see here and there,
peeping out of the sides. And this is always done as near as possible at right angles with the direction in which the vessel has a tendency to deviate. Thus, it is usually possible to keep the ship in the direction required, but should the aeronaut fail in his attempt to do so, even then he has another resource left him which
the seaman lacks. He rises or descends with his airship in search of a more favorable wind. Nor does he do so at haphazard. For the Meteorological Institute has long since issued charts upon which are marked the directions of all the air currents that will probably be found at any given altitude
for any given time. These charts are arranged in the same manner as those formerly published by the Institute, which however, merely showed the probable direction of the wind in the immediate vicinity of the Earth's surface. With regard to the modes of ascent and descent, they differ somewhat according to the nature
of the various apparatuses. And for these, to explain them to you in detail, by which alone you would understand the differences, we should have to go on deck, and it is so bitterly cold there that we are better where we are. Suffice it to say that the old clumsy process of throwing out ballast for the purpose of
rising has long been dispensed with, since it was found that the measure was merely a partial or momentary one, and slightly unacceptable to the denizens of the Earth below. The most appropriate method we have learned from nature. It consists, namely, of an imitation of the operation of the swim bladder in fishes. The latter accomplish their ascent and descent in the water by a greater or lesser compression
of that bladder, or of the air contained in it, some of them having even special compression apparatuses for that object. From this you will easily conclude the application of the aquatic locomotion to that of the navigation in the air. This, I must confess, I did not quite see, but many other points in Bacon's explanation
remain to be cleared up. Not a few questions were on the tip of my tongue, but I asked no more. I felt that I was a child of the nineteenth century. Too little au courant of the science of modern times to understand all that had been accomplished during the last two hundred years.
Moreover, I feared that, by putting more silly questions, I should lower myself in the estimation of my friend. Speaking dialect, Miss Vantasia was of too mercurial a temperament to listen to lengthy descriptions. She had already ascended the steps that led to the saloon, and we now followed her.
The compartment looked neat enough, though not comfortable. Everything pointed to the endeavors of rendering all the furniture as light as possible. And this, of course, applied to the whole affair whenever it did not interfere with the necessary solidity. Bamboo canes, cut thin and twisted together, appeared to be the chief material, and of
the metals aluminum was the only one to be seen. On our entering the waiting room, I had already noticed that all the passengers conversed with one another in the same tongue, in a dialect of which I certainly recognized a word or two, but yet a foreign idiom to me. On asking my companion what countrymen those gentlemen were, I received the following reply.
They belong to all sorts of nations. That burly-looking gentleman yonder is a Russian. That ridiculous little man playing with his mustache and ogling all the ladies can only be a Frenchman. The other truculent figure who has paid the highest fare is one of your own countrymen,
a Dutchman. Those two blue-eyed, flaxen-haired youngsters are Germans, and all the rest are English. But how, then, is it that they all speak the same language? They speak the traveling dialect. In our modern days, when many people spend the greater portion of their time in traveling,
and all nationalities continually mingle together, such an idiom was created almost spontaneously. True, it is as yet but a language in its infancy, and it will probably, at no great distance of time, become the universal tongue. I listened as attentively as I dared and could, and I observed very soon that the so-called traveling dialect was a mixture of various tongues.
English though preponderating, and this I ascribed to the fact of the majority of the traveling public being generally Englishmen. End of part five.
