I hastily computed the distance by an air-line, and placed the speedof the craft at some thirty miles an hour. That seemed reasonableenough. Indeed, the whole statement cohered marvellously well; all theparts harmonized with each other and looked plausible, evenreasonable, as I have said, except the grand fact itself, which wastoo momentous for belief. But why should it not be true? What newachievement of the human mind ought to startle one in this nineteenthcentury, after having witnessed the wonders of steam and electro-magnetism? I determined to sift the matter, but immediately rememberedthat all the knowledge I had of it had been imparted to me in thestrictest confidence. The ingenious inventors, as was clearly theirright, had reserved it to themselves to choose the time and way ofmaking their invention public, when it was to break on the world, somefine morning, like the discovery of a second moon performing its orbitround the earth. I sunk into a brown study.In the evening, Mr. Bonflon called again, as he had promised. Hebrought with him a large roll of plans and drawings, for the purposeof illustrating more clearly the principles and method of constructionand operation of his aerial ship. They were projected on a largescale, and the workmanship was superb. Months of hard labor by afinished draughtsman must have been devoted to their execution. "Andwhat an additional outlay of time and brains," thought I, "must havebeen required, to devise the scheme and construct the machine itself,so as to elevate the ingenious ideal into an absolute workingreality!" These drawings, Mr. Bonflon informed me, were duplicates ofothers which had been privately deposited in the Patent-Office atWashington.The one which chiefly attracted my attention was that whichrepresented the monster steamer complete, with all its appendages andcomplement of passengers, in its majestic flight through the air.Below it were the drifting clouds. Its course lay quite above thestorms and hurricanes and conflicting wind-currents which vex thelower strata of the atmosphere, where it comes in contact with theearth's uneven surface, and is kept in motion by the contractions andexpansions of alternate cold and heat, and is broken and set whirlingby the forests and gorges and mountain-tops among which it iscompelled to force its way. Above all this, Mr. Bonflon assured me, asaeronauts report, there is ever a smooth, quiet atmospheric sea."But how is life to be sustained for any considerable time in thatrarefied medium?" inquired I, "when it is asserted that even inascending high mountains, the texture of the soft parts of the humanbody becomes so loose and flabby from diminished atmospheric pressureas to cause one, so to speak, to sweat blood,--which oozes perceptiblyfrom the mouth and nose and eyes, and even from under the finger-nails?"