Robur the Conqueror. Jules Verne

results that should be taken into account.⁸ But if these machines, plunged into a milieu heavier than they were, maneuvered by power from a propeller, tilting with the course of the wind, even changing direction with a contrary breeze and returning to their starting point, can really be said to have been steered, they had only succeeded thanks to extremely favorable circumstances. In vast halls with walls and roofs, perfect! In calm atmospheres, very good! With a light wind of five or six meters a second, still passable! But, all things considered, nothing really practical had yet been achieved. Against enough wind to power a windmill—eight meters per second—these machines remained almost stationary; against a fresh breeze—ten meters per second—they traveled backward; against a storm—twenty-five to thirty meters per second—they were carried off like feathers; in the midst of a hurricane—forty-five meters per sec-ond—they ran the risk of being smashed to pieces; and, in one of those cyclones that surpass a hundred meters per second, they would have disappeared without a trace.

      Uncle Prudent planted his needle.

      So it remained clear that, even after the groundbreaking experiments by Captains Krebs and Renard, if dirigible balloons had gained a little in speed, they still needed every bit of that speed to hold up against a mere breeze. Hence the impossibility, so far, of putting such means of aerial travel to practical use.

      Be that as it may, beyond the problem of steering balloons—that is to say, considering the means used to give them their own speed—much faster progress had been made in the question of motors. Henri Giffard’s steam-powered machines, Dupuy de Lôme’s use of muscular force, had gradually given way to motors run by electricity. Batteries of potassium dichromate, forming storage cells mounted in series, gave the brothers Messrs. Tissandier a speed of four meters per second. Dynamoelectric machines, driven by Captains Krebs and Renard at twelve horsepower, produced a speed of six and a half meters, on average.

      And then, in the way of motors, engineers and electricians had tried to come closer and closer to that desideratum one might call “horsepower in a pocket watch.”⁹ So, little by little, the effects of the battery that Captains Krebs and Renard kept secret were surpassed, and aeronauts were able to use motors whose lightness increased with their power.

      So there was much to encourage those who believed in the practicality of dirigible balloons. And yet how many bright minds refused to admit that practicality! The fact is, if an aerostat finds a point of support in midair, it belongs to the same milieu in which the whole apparatus is immersed. In such conditions, how could its mass, fighting the currents of the atmosphere, hold up against even moderate winds, no matter how powerful its propeller?

      That was still the question; but there was hope of resolving it, by employing apparatuses of large dimension.

       The question of balloons

      Now it happened that, in this fight between inventors in search of a light and powerful motor, the Americans were the closest to the famous desideratum. A dynamoelectric apparatus, based on the use of a new kind of battery, the composition of which was still a mystery, had been bought from its inventor, a Boston chemist hitherto unknown. Calculations made with the greatest care, diagrams plotted out with the strictest exactitude, demonstrated that with this apparatus, powering a propeller of appropriate dimensions, one could obtain movements of eighteen or twenty meters per second.

      In truth, that would be magnificent!

      “And it isn’t expensive either!” Uncle Prudent had added, giving the inventor, in exchange for his receipt in due form, the final packet of the hundred thousand paper dollars they were paying for his invention.

      The Weldon Institute set to work immediately. When an experiment is proposed that might have some practical utility, cash flows willingly out of American pockets. Funds abounded, without it even becoming necessary to form a stock company. Three hundred thousand dollars—a sum equivalent to fifteen hundred thousand francs—came at the first call and piled itself up in the club coffers. Work began under the direction of the most celebrated aeronaut in the United States, Harry W. Tinder, immortalized by three of his thousand ascensions: one in which he rose to twelve thousand meters, higher than Guy-Lussac, Coxwell, Sivel, Crocé-Spinelli, Tissandier, or Glaisher; another in which he crossed the whole of America from New York to San Francisco, surpassing by several hundred leagues the flights of Nadar, Godard, and so many others, not to mention John Wise, who traveled 1,150 miles from St. Louis to Jefferson County; the third, finally, ending in a horrific fall of fifteen hundred feet, the only injury from which was a mere sprain of the right wrist¹⁰—whereas the less fortunate Pilâtre de Rozier, after falling only seven hundred feet, was killed instantly.

      At the moment this story begins, one can already judge how smoothly the Weldon Institute has handled its affairs. In the Turner construction sites in Philadelphia,¹¹ an enormous balloon lay spread out, its sturdiness about to be tested by cramming it with air under high pressure. This, above all others, merited the name of monster-balloon.

      How large in fact was Nadar’s Géant? Six thousand cubic meters. And John Wise’s balloon? Twenty thousand cubic meters. And the Giffard balloon at the Exposition of 1878? Twenty-five thousand cubic meters, with a radius of eighteen meters. Compare these three aerostats with the Weldon Institute’s balloon, whose volume figured at forty thousand cubic meters, and you shall see that Uncle Prudent and his colleagues had some right to be puffed up with pride.

      The third ascension ended in a horrific fall.

      This balloon, not being destined to explore the highest reaches of the atmosphere, was not named Excelsior, a designation a little too much in honor among American citizens. No! It was named simply Go Ahead—and all that remained for it to do was to justify its name by obeying all the steering commands of its captain.

      At this point, the dynamoelectric machine was almost entirely completed, built from the patented plans the Weldon Institute had acquired. Before six weeks were out, the Go Ahead could be expected to take flight into space.

      However, as we have seen, not all the mechanical difficulties were yet resolved. Meeting upon meeting had been devoted to discussing, not the shape of the propeller nor its dimensions, but whether it would be placed in the back of the apparatus, following the Tissandier brothers, or in the front, following Captains Krebs and Renard. It is unnecessary to add that, in this discussion, the supporters of the two systems were at each other’s throats. The group of “Frontists” was equal in number to that of the “Backists.” Uncle Prudent—whose duty it was to make the casting vote in cases of deadlock—Uncle Prudent no doubt had been a pupil in the school of Professor Buridan, for he had not managed to make up his mind.¹²

      So it was impossible to come to terms, impossible to put the propeller in place. This could have gone on a long time, unless the government intervened. But in the United States, as everyone knows, the government does not at all enjoy meddling in private affairs, nor mixing itself up in things that do not pertain to it.

      Since that was the state of affairs, the meeting on July 13 threatened to never end, or rather to end in the midst of the most horrific commotion—insults exchanged, punches following insults, stick fights following punches, gunfire following stick fights—when, at 8:37, there was an interruption.

      The usher at the Weldon Institute, coolly and calmly, like a policeman amid the thunderstorms of a political meeting, had approached the president’s desk. He presented a card, and awaited whatever orders it would suit Uncle Prudent to give.

      Uncle Prudent sounded the steam horn that served him as a presidential bell, for even the bell at the Kremlin would not have been enough for him!¹³ But the tumult only continued to increase. Then the president went so far as to doff his hat, and a half-silence was obtained, thanks to this drastic measure.

      “A