The one which chiefly attracted my attention was that which represented the monster steamer complete, with all its appendages and complement of passengers, in its majestic flight through the air. Below it were the drifting clouds. Its course lay quite above the storms and hurricanes and conflicting wind-currents which vex the lower strata of the atmosphere, where it comes in contact with the earth's uneven surface, and is kept in motion by the contractions and expansions of alternate cold and heat, and is broken and set whirling by the forests and gorges and mountain-tops among which it is compelled to force its way. Above all this, Mr. Bonflon assured me, as aëronauts report, there is ever a smooth, quiet atmospheric sea.
"But how is life to be sustained for any considerable time in that rarefied medium?" inquired I, "when it is asserted that even in ascending high mountains, the texture of the soft parts of the human body becomes so loose and flabby from diminished atmospheric pressure as to cause one, so to speak, to sweat blood,—which oozes perceptibly from the mouth and nose and eyes, and even from under the finger-nails?"
Mr. Bonflon pointed to a long, narrow line which floated rearward at an angle of about forty-five degrees from the point of its attachment to his ship.
"That," said he, "is an India-rubber tube several thousand feet long, extending down into the respirable atmosphere, and keeping the cabins always supplied with fresh and wholesome air."
"But would the heavier nether air flow in that direction?" I asked.
"With a little help from the engine," he replied, "a constant current, whenever needed, is kept up; and the process of breathing is rendered as easy and agreeable in the cabins of the 'Flying Cloud' as in one's own parlors at home. On the upper deck, which is not inclosed, you see, it is different. In the first trial-trip to California, Mr. M—— insisted on remaining above on this deck for six consecutive hours, and the result was an attack of hemorrhage from the lungs. On his going below, however, it almost instantly ceased."
I must now endeavor to give the reader some definite idea of this extraordinary machine, as exhibited in the drawings. Its buoyant power was, of course, on the principle of the balloon. But the gas-chamber, or part to be inflated, instead of being globular in form, consisted of two horizontal cones joined at the base; or more accurately still, it resembled an immense barrel extended at both ends to a point, and resting on its side. This shape was given it, according to Mr. Bonflon, that it might offer the least possible resistance to the element in which it was intended to move. In structure it was composed of a strong flexible frame of whalebone and steel, covered with silk, strengthened and rendered air-tight and water-proof by a coating of India-rubber. Its size, of course, would depend on the proposed tonnage of a particular ship. That of the working-model, as nearly as I remember, was about six hundred feet long, by some seventy or eighty in breadth in the middle, which was calculated to be amply sufficient to sustain the immense car beneath, with its engine, and fuel for a week, and three hundred passengers with their baggage; leaving still a considerable margin for freight.
Mr. Bonflon here pointed out, with great minuteness, the simple, but ingenious method devised for the inflation of this enormous machine, and the regulation of the gas; which I pass over, from an inability to render it intelligible by mere description.
The car or vessel suspended below, and to which the balloon part bore the relation of masts and sails, was fashioned after the best model of a clipper ship, but still farther elongated. Below deck, it was divided into sitting and dining cabins, state-rooms, kitchen, engine-room, and so forth; and above was a long, railed, promenade deck. The attachment between the two parts was by means of a network of ropes, extending from every quarter, and from the whole circumference of the ship, connecting with staples in the framework of the balloon, and finally embracing its entire body in its folds. Two enormous paddle-wheels, made of oiled silk stretched on delicate frames, and driven by a steam-engine of the lightest structure possible, furnished the propelling power; while at the stern, like a vast fin, played the helm, of a similar material and construction to the paddle-wheels.
All this was explained to me in much fuller detail than I can here repeat, by Mr. Bonflon, who added, that the materials employed combined lightness with strength to a much greater degree than had ever before been achieved,—that the fuel used was of the fluid kind, a new combination of concentrated combustibles invented by himself,—and that the weight of the entire machine had been carefully calculated beforehand, together with its buoyant power, and the results had demonstrated the accuracy of the mathematics.