“In brief, a plan for indefinitely increasing the power of gas engines by mixing unstable hydrogen with air.”
Morey laid the sheets on the table as if they weighed pounds. He drew a long breath and whistled.
“Well, what do you think of that,” he exclaimed to himself.
He had no idea what it meant. But that was not his first surprise. His astonishment was over the fact that such a record had been made by his father. That was more than he could reason out. Then he read the top sheet again.
“The practicability of using hydrogen gas as a motive power!”
Suddenly a bit of information Morey had learned at Hammondsport came back to him—“hydrogen is sixteen times as powerful as dynamite.”
He began thinking. “When my father wrote that we had no automobiles and no automobile motors. We had not even dreamed of the aeroplane and the delicate, powerful engine it demands. His idea must have been a dream. If he had a practical plan for increasing the efficiency of the motor he thought ahead of his day.”
Morey tried to examine further into the technical manuscript. But it was wholly beyond him. In the midst of his examination he sprang to his feet.
“The trouble with aeroplanes,” he said to himself, “is that the power developed is not sufficient. My father’s dream may solve the problem. His hydrogen may make engines powerful enough to make the perfect airship.”
The perplexities of the day seemed to disappear. Rays of hope burst through the gloom of the boy’s despondency. Mingled with the wave of sorrow that swept over him when he thought of his little understood, and no doubt disappointed father, was a sudden glow of enthusiasm. He would finish his father’s work. He would carry forward the dream into a practical idea for the sake of his mother.