Jules Verne (6 page)

"Or you'll have your bones picked!" said Evans.

And as Frycollin saw he might be used to prolong two existences more
precious than his own, he contented himself thenceforth with groaning
in quiet.

The time went on and all attempts to force the door or get through
the wall proved fruitless. What the wall was made of was impossible
to say. It was not metal; it was not wood; it was not stone, And all
the cell seemed to be made of the same stuff. When they stamped on
the floor it gave a peculiar sound that Uncle Prudent found it
difficult to describe; the floor seemed to sound hollow, as if it was
not resting directly on the ground of the clearing. And the
inexplicable f-r-r-r-r seemed to sweep along below it. All of which
was rather alarming.

"Uncle Prudent," said Phil Evans.

"Well?"

"Do you think our prison has been moved at all?"

"Not that I know of."

"Because when we were first caught I distinctly remember the fresh
fragrance of the grass and the resinous odor of the park trees. While
now, when I take in a good sniff of the air, it seems as though all
that had gone."

"So it has."

"Why?"

"We cannot say why unless we admit that the prison has moved; and I
say again that if the prison had moved, either as a vehicle on the
road or a boat on the stream, we should have felt it."

Here Frycollin gave vent to a long groan, which might have been taken
for his last had he not followed it up with several more.

"I expect Robur will soon have us brought before him," said Phil
Evans.

"I hope so," said Uncle Prudent. "And I shall tell him—"

"What?"

"That he began by being rude and ended in being unbearable."

Here Phil Evans noticed that day was beginning to break. A gleam,
still faint, filtered through the narrow window opposite the door. It
ought thus to be about four o'clock in the morning for it is at that
hour in the month of June in this latitude that the horizon of
Philadelphia is tinged by the first rays of the dawn.

But when Uncle Prudent sounded his repeater—which was a masterpiece
from his colleague's factory—the tiny gong only gave a quarter to
three, and the watch had not stopped.

"That is strange!" said Phil Evans. "At a quarter to three it ought
still to be night."

"Perhaps my watch has got slow," answered Uncle Prudent.

"A watch of the Wheelton Watch Company!" exclaimed Phil Evans.

Whatever might be the reason, there was no doubt that the day was
breaking. Gradually the window became white in the deep darkness of
the cell. However, if the dawn appeared sooner than the fortieth
parallel permitted, it did not advance with the rapidity peculiar to
lower latitudes. This was another observation—of Uncle Prudent's—a
new inexplicable phenomenon.

"Couldn't we get up to the window and see where we are?"

"We might," said Uncle Prudent. "Frycollin, get up!"

The Negro arose.

"Put your back against the wall," continued Prudent, "and you, Evans,
get on his shoulders while I buttress him up."

"Right!" said Evans.

An instant afterwards his knees were on Frycollin's shoulders, and
his eyes were level with the window. The window was not of lenticular
glass like those on shipboard, but was a simple flat pane. It was
small, and Phil Evans found his range of view was much limited.

"Break the glass," said Prudent, "and perhaps you will be able to see
better."

Phil Evans gave it a sharp knock with the handle of his bowie-knife.
It gave back a silvery sound, but it did not break.

Another and more violent blow. The same result.

"It is unbreakable glass!" said Evans.

It appeared as though the pane was made of glass toughened on the
Siemens system—as after several blows it remained intact.

The light had now increased, and Phil Evans could see for some
distance within the radius allowed by the frame.

"What do you see?" asked Uncle Prudent.

"Nothing."

"What? Not any trees?"

"No."

"Not even the top branches?"

"No."

"Then we are not in the clearing?"

"Neither in the clearing nor in the park."

"Don't you see any roofs of houses or monuments?" said Prudent, whose
disappointment and anger were increasing rapidly.

"No."

"What! Not a flagstaff, nor a church tower, nor a chimney?"

"Nothing but space."

As he uttered the words the door opened. A man appeared on the
threshold. It was Robur.

"Honorable balloonists" he said, in a serious voice, "you are now
free to go and come as you like."

"Free!" exclaimed Uncle Prudent.

"Yes—within the limits of the "Albatross!"

Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans rushed out of their prison. And what did
they see?

Four thousand feet below them the face of a country they sought in
vain to recognize.

"When will man cease to crawl in the depths to live in the azure and
quiet of the sky?"

To this question of Camille Flammarion's the answer is easy. It will
be when the progress of mechanics has enabled us to solve the problem
of aviation. And in a few years—as we can foresee—a more
practical utilization of electricity will do much towards that
solution.

In 1783, before the Montgolfier brothers had built their
fire-balloon, and Charles, the physician, had devised his first
aerostat, a few adventurous spirits had dreamt of the conquest of
space by mechanical means. The first inventors did not think of
apparatus lighter than air, for that the science of their time did
not allow them to imagine. It was to contrivances heavier than air,
to flying machines in imitation of the birds, that they trusted to
realize aerial locomotion.

This was exactly what had been done by that madman Icarus, the son of
Daedalus, whose wings, fixed together with wax, had melted as they
approached the sun.

But without going back to mythological times, without dwelling on
Archytas of Tarentum, we find, in the works of Dante of Perugia, of
Leonardo da Vinci and Guidotti, the idea of machines made to move
through the air. Two centuries and a half afterwards inventors began
to multiply. In 1742 the Marquis de Bacqueville designed a system of
wings, tried it over the Seine, and fell and broke his arm. In 1768
Paucton conceived the idea of an apparatus with two screws,
suspensive and propulsive. In 1781 Meerwein, the architect of the
Prince of Baden, built an orthopteric machine, and protested against
the tendency of the aerostats which had just been invented. In 1784
Launoy and Bienvenu had maneuvered a helicopter worked by springs. In
1808 there were the attempts at flight by the Austrian Jacques Degen.
In 1810 came the pamphlet by Denian of Nantes, in which the
principles of "heavier than air" are laid down. From 1811 to 1840
came the inventions and researches of Derblinger, Vigual, Sarti,
Dubochet, and Cagniard de Latour. In 1842 we have the Englishman
Henson, with his system of inclined planes and screws worked by
steam. In 1845 came Cossus and his ascensional screws. In 1847 came
Camille Vert and his helicopter made of birds' wings. In 1852 came
Letur with his system of guidable parachutes, whose trial cost him
his life; and in the same year came Michel Loup with his plan of
gliding through the air on four revolving wings. In 1853 came
Béléguic and his aeroplane with the traction screws, Vaussin-Chardannes
with his guidable kite, and George Cauley with his flying machines
driven by gas. From 1854 to 1863 appeared Joseph Pline with several
patents for aerial systems. Bréant, Carlingford, Le Bris, Du
Temple, Bright, whose ascensional screws were left-handed; Smythies,
Panafieu, Crosnier, &c. At length, in 1863, thanks to the efforts
of Nadar, a society of "heavier than air" was founded in Paris.
There the inventors could experiment with the machines, of which
many were patented. Ponton d'Amécourt and his steam helicopter, La
Landelle and his system of combining screws with inclined planes
and parachutes, Louvrié and his aeroscape, Esterno and his mechanical
bird, Groof and his apparatus with wings worked by levers. The
impetus was given, inventors invented, calculators calculated
all that could render aerial locomotion practicable. Bourcart,
Le Bris, Kaufmann, Smyth, Stringfellow, Prigent, Danjard, Pomés
and De la Pauze, Moy, Pénaud, Jobert, Haureau de Villeneuve,
Achenbach, Garapon, Duchesne, Danduran, Pariesel, Dieuaide,
Melkiseff, Forlanini, Bearey, Tatin, Dandrieux, Edison, some with
wings or screws, others with inclined planes, imagined, created,
constructed, perfected, their flying machines, ready to do their
work, once there came to be applied to thereby some inventor a motor
of adequate power and excessive lightness.

This list may be a little long, but that will be forgiven, for it is
necessary to give the various steps in the ladder of aerial
locomotion, on the top of which appeared Robur the Conqueror. Without
these attempts, these experiments of his predecessors, how could the
inquirer have conceived so perfect an apparatus? And though he had
but contempt for those who obstinately worked away in the direction
of balloons, he held in high esteem all those partisans of "heavier
than air," English, American, Italian, Austrian, French—and
particularly French—whose work had been perfected by him, and led
him to design and then to build this flying engine known as the
"Albatross," which he was guiding through the currents of the
atmosphere.

"The pigeon flies!" had exclaimed one of the most persistent adepts
at aviation.

"They will crowd the air as they crowd the earth!" said one of his
most excited partisans.

"From the locomotive to the aeromotive!" shouted the noisiest of all,
who had turned on the trumpet of publicity to awaken the Old and New
Worlds.

Nothing, in fact, is better established, by experiment and
calculation, than that the air is highly resistant. A circumference
of only a yard in diameter in the shape of a parachute can not only
impede descent in air, but can render it isochronous. That is a fact.

It is equally well known that when the speed is great the work of the
weight varies in almost inverse ratio to the square of the speed, and
therefore becomes almost insignificant.

It is also known that as the weight of a flying animal increases, the
less is the proportional increase in the surface beaten by the wings
in order to sustain it, although the motion of the wings becomes
slower.

A flying machine must therefore be constructed to take advantage of
these natural laws, to imitate the bird, "that admirable type of
aerial locomotion," according to Dr. Marcy, of the Institute of
France.

In short the contrivances likely to solve the problem are of three
kinds:—

1. Helicopters or spiralifers, which are simply screws with vertical
axes.

2. Ornithopters, machines which endeavour to reproduce the natural
flight of birds.

3. Aeroplanes, which are merely inclined planes like kites, but towed
or driven by screws.

Each of these systems has had and still has it partisans obstinately
resolved to give way in not the slightest particular. However, Robur,
for many reasons, had rejected the two first.

The ornithopter, or mechanical bird, offers certain advantages, no
doubt. That the work and experiments of M. Renard in 1884 have
sufficiently proved. But, as has been said, it is not necessary to
copy Nature servilely. Locomotives are not copied from the hare, nor
are ships copied from the fish. To the first we have put wheels which
are not legs; to the second we have put screws which are not fins.
And they do not do so badly. Besides, what is this mechanical
movement in the flight of birds, whose action is so complex? Has not
Doctor Marcy suspected that the feathers open during the return of
the wings so as to let the air through them? And is not that rather a
difficult operation for an artificial machine?

On the other hand, aeroplanes have given many good results. Screws
opposing a slanting plane to the bed of air will produce an
ascensional movement, and the models experimented on have shown that
the disposable weight, that is to say the weight it is possible to
deal with as distinct from that of the apparatus, increases with the
square of the speed. Herein the aeroplane has the advantage over the
aerostat even when the aerostat is furnished with the means of
locomotion.

Nevertheless Robur had thought that the simpler his contrivance the
better. And the screws—the Saint Helices that had been thrown in
his teeth at the Weldon Institute—had sufficed for all the needs of
his flying machine. One series could hold it suspended in the air,
the other could drive it along under conditions that were marvelously
adapted for speed and safety.

If the ornithopter—striking like the wings of a bird—raised
itself by beating the air, the helicopter raised itself by striking
the air obliquely, with the fins of the screw as it mounted on an
inclined plane. These fins, or arms, are in reality wings, but wings
disposed as a helix instead of as a paddle wheel. The helix advances
in the direction of its axis. Is the axis vertical? Then it moves
vertically. Is the axis horizontal? Then it moves horizontally.

The whole of Robur's flying apparatus depended on these two
movements, as will be seen from the following detailed description,
which can be divided under three heads—the platform, the engines of
suspension and propulsion, and the machinery.

Platform.—This was a framework a hundred feet long and twelve wide,
a ship's deck in fact, with a projecting prow. Beneath was a hull
solidly built, enclosing the engines, stores, and provisions of all
sorts, including the watertanks. Round the deck a few light uprights
supported a wire trellis that did duty for bulwarks. On the deck were
three houses, whose compartments were used as cabins for the crew, or
as machine rooms. In the center house was the machine which drove the
suspensory helices, in that forward was the machine that drove the
bow screw, in that aft was the machine that drove the stern screw. In
the bow were the cook's galley and the crew's quarters; in the stern
were several cabins, including that of the engineer, the saloon, and
above them all a glass house in which stood the helmsman, who steered
the vessel by means of a powerful rudder. All these cabins were
lighted by port-holes filled with toughened glass, which has ten
times the resistance of ordinary glass. Beneath the hull was a system
of flexible springs to ease off the concussion when it became
advisable to land.