I looked about me at the passengers, hampers of provisions, culinary utensils and table equipment, and estimated that the Aerocar was carrying not less than four thousand pounds of dead weight.
"You are wondering how so much bulk and weight ascend without apparent cause."
I assented to the proposition.
"When you are at home and see an inflated balloon ascend, carrying a man weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, with seventy-five pounds of sand ballast, you can understand how it ascends?"
"Readily."
"By mechanical contrivance of immense comparative bulk, aided by chemical product, the power of gravitation is sufficiently overcome or neutralized that a disproportionately small amount of weight is carried into the upper air. We ascend for the same general reason, the resultant of a greater, a different and a fixed principle.
"Our pilot, by means of the mechanical and other power at his command, neutralized the attraction of gravitation, and without the aid of any other appliance arose, carrying a weight of more than four thousand of your pounds avoirdupois. It has ascended in a direct or perpendicular line, despite the breeze, which would otherwise have carried us at a western angle. I will have the pilot produce an equilibrium, stopping all movement."
A signal was given the pilot, and, after a slight manipulation, it stood still.
"Now we will descend, first perpendicularly and then at an angle of forty-five degrees."