It sent the electric current into the searchlight, and a brilliant flood of fifty thousand candle power light gushed out.
A funnel-shaped streak of white light was projected a mile ahead by the powerful lens, and the barometer showed the inventor that they had gone up to a height of nine hundred and sixty rods, or three miles.
People on the earth imagined the searchlight was a comet with an extremely long tail, when the clouds did not conceal its flight across the firmament.
Although the wind was dead ahead, and the strata they were in blew at the velocity of fifty miles an hour, the Jove was forging into it at the rate of forty miles an hour.
Frank depressed the rudder, and the machine slowly drifted downward, as she was then in an extremely cold region.
At two o’clock Zamora and Barney relieved the inventor and the coon, who thereupon turned in.
The airship traveled stiffly, steadily and well for two days, traversing the continent in a southerly direction and passing the most diversified scenery.
When night fell upon the scene again the sky had a dark, ominous appearance.
Indeed, Frank realized that as they were in the tropical cyclone region he had cause to fear a heavy storm, and for that reason he refused to retire.
Barney remained up with him that night.