Jules Verne (3 page)

With regards to the means employed to give the aerostat its motion a
great deal of progress had been made. For the steam engines of Henry
Giffard, and the muscular force of Dupuy de Lome, electric motors had
gradually been substituted. The batteries of bichromate of potassium
of the Tissandier brothers had given a speed of four yards a second.
The dynamo-electric machines of Captain Krebs and Renard had
developed a force of twelve horsepower and yielded a speed of six and
a half yards per second.

With regard to this motor, engineers and electricians had been
approaching more and more to that desideratum which is known as a
steam horse in a watch case. Gradually the results of the pile of
which Captains Krebs and Renard had kept the secret had been
surpassed, and aeronauts had become able to avail themselves of
motors whose lightness increased at the same time as their power.

In this there was much to encourage those who believed in the
utilization of guidable balloons. But yet how many good people there
are who refuse to admit the possibility of such a thing! If the
aerostat finds support in the air it belongs to the medium in which
it moves; under such conditions, how can its mass, which offers so
much resistance to the currents of the atmosphere, make its way
against the wind?

In this struggle of the inventors after a light and powerful motor,
the Americans had most nearly attained what they sought. A
dynamo-electric apparatus, in which a new pile was employed the
composition of which was still a mystery, had been bought from its
inventor, a Boston chemist up to then unknown. Calculations made with
the greatest care, diagrams drawn with the utmost exactitude, showed
that by means of this apparatus driving a screw of given dimensions a
displacement could be obtained of from twenty to twenty-two yards a
second.

Now this was magnificent!

"And it is not dear," said Uncle Prudent, as he handed to the
inventor in return for his formal receipt the last installment of the
hundred thousand paper dollars he had paid for his invention.

Immediately the Weldon Institute set to work. When there comes along
a project of practical utility the money leaps nimbly enough from
American pockets. The funds flowed in even without its being
necessary to form a syndicate. Three hundred thousand dollars came
into the club's account at the first appeal. The work began under the
superintendence of the most celebrated aeronaut of the United States,
Harry W. Tinder, immortalized by three of his ascents out of a
thousand, one in which he rose to a height of twelve thousand yards,
higher than Gay Lussac, Coxwell, Sivet, Crocé-Spinelli, Tissandier,
Glaisher; another in which he had crossed America from New York to
San Francisco, exceeding by many hundred leagues the journeys of
Nadar, Godard, and others, to say nothing of that of John Wise, who
accomplished eleven hundred and fifty miles from St. Louis to
Jefferson county; the third, which ended in a frightful fall from
fifteen hundred feet at the cost of a slight sprain in the right
thumb, while the less fortunate Pilâtre de Rozier fell only seven
hundred feet, and yet killed himself on the spot!

At the time this story begins the Weldon Institute had got their work
well in hand. In the Turner yard at Philadelphia there reposed an
enormous aerostat, whose strength had been tried by highly compressed
air. It well merited the name of the monster balloon.

How large was Nadar's Géant? Six thousand cubic meters. How large was
John Wise's balloon? Twenty thousand cubic meters. How large was the
Giffard balloon at the 1878 Exhibition? Twenty-five thousand cubic
meters. Compare these three aerostats with the aerial machine of the
Weldon Institute, whose volume amounted to forty thousand cubic
meters, and you will understand why Uncle Prudent and his colleagues
were so justifiably proud of it.

This balloon not being destined for the exploration of the higher
strata of the atmosphere, was not called the Excelsior, a name which
is rather too much held in honor among the citizens of America. No!
It was called, simply, the "Go-Ahead," and all it had to do was to
justify its name by going ahead obediently to the wishes of its
commander.

The dynamo-electric machine, according to the patent purchased by the
Weldon Institute, was nearly ready. In less than six weeks the
"Go-Ahead" would start for its first cruise through space.

But, as we have seen, all the mechanical difficulties had not been
overcome. Many evenings had been devoted to discussing, not the form
of its screw nor its dimensions, but whether it ought to be put
behind, as the Tissandier brothers had done, or before as Captains
Krebs and Renard had done. It is unnecessary to add that the
partisans of the two systems had almost come to blows. The group of
"Beforists" were equaled in number by the group of "Behindists."
Uncle Prudent, who ought to have given the casting vote—Uncle
Prudent, brought up doubtless in the school of Professor Buridan—could
not bring himself to decide.

Hence the impossibility of getting the screw into place. The dispute
might last for some time, unless the government interfered. But in
the United States the government meddles with private affairs as
little as it possibly can. And it is right.

Things were in this state at this meeting on the 13th of June, which
threatened to end in a riot—insults exchanged, fisticuffs
succeeding the insults, cane thrashings succeeding the fisticuffs,
revolver shots succeeding the cane thrashings—when at thirty-seven
minutes past eight there occurred a diversion.

The porter of the Weldon Institute coolly and calmly, like a
policeman amid the storm of the meeting, approached the presidential
desk. On it he placed a card. He awaited the orders that Uncle
Prudent found it convenient to give.

Uncle Prudent turned on the steam whistle, which did duty for the
presidential bell, for even the Kremlin clock would have struck in
vain! But the tumult slackened not.

Then the president removed his hat. Thanks to this extreme measure a
semi-silence was obtained.

"A communication!" said Uncle Prudent, after taking a huge pinch from
the snuff-box which never left him.

"Speak up!" answered eighty-nine voices, accidentally in agreement on
this one point.

"A stranger, my dear colleagues, asks to be admitted to the meeting."

"Never!" replied every voice.

"He desires to prove to us, it would appear," continued Uncle
Prudent, "that to believe in guiding balloons is to believe in the
absurdest of Utopias!"

"Let him in! Let him in!"

"What is the name of this singular personage?" asked secretary Phil
Evans.

"Robur," replied Uncle Prudent.

"Robur! Robur! Robur!" yelled the assembly. And the welcome accorded
so quickly to the curious name was chiefly due to the Weldon
Institute hoping to vent its exasperation on the head of him who bore
it!

"Citizens of the United States! My name is Robur. I am worthy of the
name! I am forty years old, although I look but thirty, and I have a
constitution of iron, a healthy vigor that nothing can shake, a
muscular strength that few can equal, and a digestion that would be
thought first class even in an ostrich!"

They were listening! Yes! The riot was quelled at once by the totally
unexpected fashion of the speech. Was this fellow a madman or a
hoaxer? Whoever he was, he kept his audience in hand. There was not a
whisper in the meeting in which but a few minutes ago the storm was
in full fury.

And Robur looked the man he said he was. Of middle height and
geometric breadth, his figure was a regular trapezium with the
greatest of its parallel sides formed by the line of his shoulders.
On this line attached by a robust neck there rose an enormous
spheroidal head. The head of what animal did it resemble from the
point of view of passional analogy? The head of a bull; but a bull
with an intelligent face. Eyes which at the least opposition would
glow like coals of fire; and above them a permanent contraction of
the superciliary muscle, an invariable sign of extreme energy. Short
hair, slightly woolly, with metallic reflections; large chest rising
and falling like a smith's bellows; arms, hands, legs, feet, all
worthy of the trunk. No mustaches, no whiskers, but a large American
goatee, revealing the attachments of the jaw whose masseter muscles
were evidently of formidable strength. It has been calculated—what
has not been calculated?—that the pressure of the jaw of an
ordinary crocodile can reach four hundred atmospheres, while that of
a hound can only amount to one hundred. From this the following
curious formula has been deduced: If a kilogram of dog produces eight
kilograms of masseteric force, a kilogram of crocodile could produce
twelve. Now, a kilogram of, the aforesaid Robur would not produce
less than ten, so that he came between the dog and the crocodile.

From what country did this remarkable specimen come? It was difficult
to say. One thing was noticeable, and that was that he expressed
himself fluently in English without a trace of the drawling twang
that distinguishes the Yankees of New England.

He continued: "And now, honorable citizens, for my mental faculties.
You see before you an engineer whose nerves are in no way inferior to
his muscles. I have no fear of anything or anybody. I have a strength
of will that has never had to yield. When I have decided on a thing,
all America, all the world, may strive in vain to keep me from it.
When I have an idea, I allow no one to share it, and I do not permit
any contradiction. I insist on these details, honorable citizens,
because it is necessary you should quite understand me. Perhaps you
think I am talking too much about myself? It does not matter if you
do! And now consider a little before you interrupt me, as I have come
to tell you something that you may not be particularly pleased to
hear."

A sound as of the surf on the beach began to rise along the first row
of seats—a sign that the sea would not be long in getting stormy
again.

"Speak, stranger!" said Uncle Prudent, who had some difficulty in
restraining himself.

And Robur spoke as follows, without troubling himself any more about
his audience.

"Yes! I know it well! After a century of experiments that have led to
nothing, and trials giving no results, there still exist ill-balanced
minds who believe in guiding balloons. They imagine that a motor of
some sort, electric or otherwise, might be applied to their
pretentious skin bags which are at the mercy of every current in the
atmosphere. They persuade themselves that they can be masters of an
aerostat as they can be masters of a ship on the surface of the sea.
Because a few inventors in calm or nearly calm weather have succeeded
in working an angle with the wind, or even beating to windward in a
gentle breeze, they think that the steering of aerial apparatus
lighter than the air is a practical matter. Well, now, look here; You
hundred, who believe in the realization of your dreams, are throwing
your thousands of dollars not into water but into space! You are
fighting the impossible!"

Strange as it was that at this affirmation the members of the Weldon
Institute did not move. Had they become as deaf as they were patient?
Or were they reserving themselves to see how far this audacious
contradictor would dare to go?

Robur continued: "What? A balloon! When to obtain the raising of a
couple of pounds you require a cubic yard of gas. A balloon
pretending to resist the wind by aid of its mechanism, when the
pressure of a light breeze on a vessel's sails is not less than that
of four hundred horsepower; when in the accident at the Tay Bridge
you saw the storm produce a pressure of eight and a half
hundredweight on a square yard. A balloon, when on such a system
nature has never constructed anything flying, whether furnished with
wings like birds, or membranes like certain fish, or certain mammalia—"

"Mammalia?" exclaimed one of the members.

"Yes! Mammalia! The bat, which flies, if I am not mistaken! Is the
gentleman unaware that this flyer is a mammal? Did he ever see an
omelette made of bat's eggs?"

The interrupter reserved himself for future interruption, and Robur
resumed: "But does that mean that man is to give up the conquest of
the air, and the transformation of the domestic and political manners
of the old world, by the use of this admirable means of locomotion?
By no means. As he has become master of the seas with the ship, by
the oar, the sail, the wheel and the screw, so shall he become master
of atmospherical space by apparatus heavier than the air—for it
must be heavier to be stronger than the air!"

And then the assembly exploded. What a broadside of yells escaped
from all these mouths, aimed at Robur like the muzzles of so many
guns! Was not this hurling a declaration of war into the very camp of
the balloonists? Was not this a stirring up of strife between 'the
lighter' and 'the heavier' than air?

Robur did not even frown. With folded arms he waited bravely till
silence was obtained.

By a gesture Uncle Prudent ordered the firing to cease.

"Yes," continued Robur, "the future is for the flying machine. The
air affords a solid fulcrum. If you will give a column of air an
ascensional movement of forty-five meters a second, a man can support
himself on the top of it if the soles of his boots have a superficies
of only the eighth of a square meter. And if the speed be increased
to ninety meters, he can walk on it with naked feet. Or if, by means
of a screw, you drive a mass of air at this speed, you get the same
result."

What Robur said had been said before by all the partisans of
aviation, whose work slowly but surely is leading on to the solution
of the problem. To Ponton d'Amécourt, La Landelle, Nadar, De Luzy, De
Louvrié, Liais, Beleguir, Moreau, the brothers Richard, Babinet,
Jobert, Du Temple, Salives, Penaud, De Villeneuve, Gauchot and Tatin,
Michael Loup, Edison, Planavergne, and so many others, belongs the
honor of having brought forward ideas of such simplicity. Abandoned
and resumed times without number, they are sure, some day to triumph.
To the enemies of aviation, who urge that the bird only sustains
himself by warming the air he strikes, their answer is ready. Have
they not proved that an eagle weighing five kilograms would have to
fill fifty cubic meters with his warm fluid merely to sustain himself
in space?