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Cross that shines up there in the Creator's button-hole."
"Ay, and you'd have well earned it!" said the sailors.
Thus passed the long evenings on the forecastle in
merry chat, and during the same time the doctor went on
with his instructive discourses.
One day the conversation turned upon the means of
directing balloons, and the doctor was asked his opinion
about it.
"I don't think," said he, "that we shall succeed in finding
out a system of directing them. I am familiar with
all the plans attempted and proposed, and not one has
succeeded, not one is practicable. You may readily
understand that I have occupied my mind with this subject,
which was, necessarily, so interesting to me, but I have
not been able to solve the problem with the appliances
now known to mechanical science. We would have to
discover a motive power of extraordinary force, and
almost impossible lightness of machinery. And, even then,
we could not resist atmospheric currents of any considerable
strength. Until now, the effort has been rather to
direct the car than the balloon, and that has been one
great error."
"Still there are many points of resemblance between a
balloon and a ship which is directed at will."
"Not at all," retorted the doctor, "there is little or no
similarity between the two cases. Air is infinitely less
dense than water, in which the ship is only half submerged,
while the whole bulk of a balloon is plunged in the atmosphere,
and remains motionless with reference to the element
that surrounds it."
"You think, then, that aerostatic science has said its
last word?"
"Not at all! not at all! But we must look for another
point in the case, and if we cannot manage to guide our
balloon, we must, at least, try to keep it in favorable aerial
currents. In proportion as we ascend, the latter become
much more uniform and flow more constantly in one direction.
They are no longer disturbed by the mountains and
valleys that traverse the surface of the globe, and these,
you know, are the chief cause of the variations of the wind
and the inequality of their force. Therefore, these zones
having been once determined, the balloon will merely have
to be placed in the currents best adapted to its destination.
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