Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

David Morning selected Coronado Beach for his dynamic experiments, and, with some difficulty, chartered the entire hotel for one month, during which time it was reserved exclusively for his guests. He also leased the northerly end of the Coronado Beach peninsula for the construction and equipment of his air ship, and for a laboratory for the manufacture of potentite.

The real Coronado Islands are within the territorial jurisdiction of Mexico, situated about sixteen miles south and west from San Diego Bay, and were, except in cloudy weather, distinctly visible from Coronado Beach. Irregular and ragged masses of red sandstone a few thousand acres in extent towered to a height of several hundred feet above the ocean, faintly staining the horizon with patches of blue, resembling an unfinished sky in water color.

These islands were destitute of water and vegetation, and never inhabited save by a few laborers who were engaged in quarrying rock there, and Morning found no difficulty in purchasing them from their owners, and removing all the occupants.

On the northern end of the Coronado Beach peninsula, Morning caused to be erected a laboratory for the manufacture of potentite, with which to load the steel shells to be carried by the air ship. This new dynamic force, or, rather, storehouse of force, consisted of a combination of explosive gelatine with fulminate of mercury, and possessed a power equal to thirteen hundred tons to the square inch, or sixty times that of common blasting gunpowder, and nine times that of dynamite, and fifty pounds of it properly directed would sink any ironclad afloat. It is quite safe for manipulation, because it is unexplosive, except when brought in contact with a chemical substance—also non-explosive except by contact—which is only added immediately before using.

The Petrel, the air ship used at the dynamic exposition, was built by the Mount Carmel Aeronautic Company at their works in Chicago, and sent by rail in sections to Coronado Beach, where she was put together. She was cigar-shaped, one hundred feet in length and twenty feet in diameter, and was built of butternut—the toughest of the light woods. Her engines, with their fans and propellers, as well as the gas generator and tank for benzine, were all constructed of tempered aluminum, made by the new Kentucky process, at a cost of only eight cents per pound. Being stronger and tougher than the finest steel, and only one-third the weight of that metal, aluminum was especially adapted for the construction of air ships.

The machinery of the Petrel was propelled by a gas generated from benzine. The fluid was carried in an air-tight aluminum tank, from which it passed, drop by drop, to the generator. This gas, almost as powerful as the vibratory ether discovered by Mr. Keely, was much safer because more certainly controlled.

The Petrel, with all her machinery in place, with two tons of benzine in her tanks, and ten men on board of her supplied with sufficient water and food for use for fifteen days, weighed but ten tons, and the force generated from two tons of benzine was sufficient to lift her, with a freight of ten tons more, to a height of five thousand or even ten thousand feet, and, without any aid from her folding aluminum parachute, was able to maintain her there for a fortnight, at a speed—in a still atmosphere—of fifty miles per hour. No balloon was attached to the Petrel, as she relied entirely upon her paddles and wings both for propulsion and as a means of maintaining herself in the air.

She was constructed upon the principle of aerial navigation furnished by the wild goose. That bird maintains himself in the ether during a flight of hundreds of miles without a rest, simply because his strength, or muscular power, is greater, in proportion to his weight, than that of creatures who walk upon the ground. Man could always have constructed wings of silk and bamboo which would have enabled him to fly if he had only possessed the strength to flap his wings.

Aerial navigation never presented any other problem than that of procuring power without weight. Once able to obtain the power of a ten-horse engine, with a weight, including machinery, of less than one ton, one might fly all over the world, and, by taking advantage of the air currents, a knowledge of which will soon be gained, fly at a speed of fifty or even one hundred miles an hour. The recent discovery of the immense power of a gas which it is possible to generate from benzine without the use of fuel, has made the air as available for the purposes of rapid transit by man as the ocean or the land. The great cost of locomotion by this means will doubtless prevent its use for the transportation of freight, or, indeed, of passengers, except for those who can afford the luxury, and for them it will supplant all other methods.

The Petrel was provided with the new patent condensed fuel, one pound of which for cooking and heating purposes is equal to ten pounds of coal. She was furnished with parachutes made of thin sheets of aluminum closely folded one above the other. These, when not in use, formed an awning or canopy over her deck, while, in case of accident, they could, by pulling a convenient lever, be instantly spread over an area large enough to insure her a gradual and safe descent, and should such descent be into the water, she was so constructed as to float as buoyantly as a cork upon its surface, while, by lessening the number of revolutions per minute of her aluminum propellers, they could be used as paddles for her propulsion through the water.