Jules Verne (7 page)

Engines of suspension and propulsion.—Above the deck rose
thirty-seven vertical axes, fifteen along each side, and seven, more
elevated, in the centre. The "Albatross" might be called a clipper
with thirty-seven masts. But these masts instead of sails bore each
two horizontal screws, not very large in spread or diameter, but
driven at prodigious speed. Each of these axes had its own movement
independent of the rest, and each alternate one spun round in a
different direction from the others, so as to avoid any tendency to
gyration. Hence the screws as they rose on the vertical column of air
retained their equilibrium by their horizontal resistance.
Consequently the apparatus was furnished with seventy-four suspensory
screws, whose three branches were connected by a metallic circle
which economized their motive force. In front and behind, mounted on
horizontal axes, were two propelling screws, each with four arms.
These screws were of much larger diameter than the suspensory ones,
but could be worked at quite their speed. In fact, the vessel
combined the systems of Cossus, La Landelle, and Ponton d'Amécourt, as
perfected by Robur. But it was in the choice and application of his
motive force that he could claim to be an inventor.

Machinery.—Robur had not availed himself of the vapor of water or
other liquids, nor compressed air and other mechanical motion. He
employed electricity, that agent which one day will be the soul of
the industrial world. But he required no electro-motor to produce it.
All he trusted to was piles and accumulators. What were the elements
of these piles, and what were the acids he used, Robur only knew. And
the construction of the accumulators was kept equally secret. Of what
were their positive and negative plates? None can say. The engineer
took good care—and not unreasonably—to keep his secret
unpatented. One thing was unmistakable, and that was that the piles
were of extraordinary strength; and the accumulators left those of
Faure-Sellon-Volckmar very far behind in yielding currents whose
ampères ran into figures up to then unknown. Thus there was obtained
a power to drive the screws and communicate a suspending and
propelling force in excess of all his requirements under any
circumstances.

But—it is as well to repeat it—this belonged entirely to Robur.
He kept it a close secret. And, if the president and secretary of the
Weldon Institute did not happen to discover it, it would probably be
lost to humanity.

It need not be shown that the apparatus possessed sufficient
stability. Its center of gravity proved that at once. There was no
danger of its making alarming angles with the horizontal, still less
of its capsizing.

And now for the metal used by Robur in the construction of his
aeronef—a name which can be exactly applied to the "Albatross."
What was this material, so hard that the bowie-knife of Phil Evans
could not scratch it, and Uncle Prudent could not explain its nature?
Simply paper!

For some years this fabrication had been making considerable
progress. Unsized paper, with the sheets impregnated with dextrin and
starch and squeezed in hydraulic presses, will form a material as
hard as steel. There are made of it pulleys, rails, and wagon-wheels,
much more solid than metal wheels, and far lighter. And it was this
lightness and solidity which Robur availed himself of in building his
aerial locomotive. Everything—framework, hull, houses, cabins—were
made of straw-paper turned hard as metal by compression, and—what
was not to be despised in an apparatus flying at great
heights—incombustible. The different parts of the engines and the
screws were made of gelatinized fiber, which combined in sufficient
degree flexibility with resistance. This material could be used in
every form. It was insoluble in most gases and liquids, acids or
essences, to say nothing of its insulating properties, and it proved
most valuable in the electric machinery of the "Albatross."

Robur, his mate Tom Turner, an engineer and two assistants, two
steersman and a cook—eight men all told—formed the crew of the
aeronef, and proved ample for all the maneuvers required in aerial
navigation. There were arms of the chase and of war; fishing
appliances; electric lights; instruments of observation, compasses,
and sextants for checking the course, thermometers for studying the
temperature, different barometers, some for estimating the heights
attained, others for indicating the variations of atmospheric
pressure; a storm-glass for forecasting tempests; a small library; a
portable printing press; a field-piece mounted on a pivot; breech
loading and throwing a three-inch shell; a supply of powder, bullets,
dynamite cartridges; a cooking-stove, warmed by currents from the
accumulators; a stock of preserves, meats and vegetables sufficient
to last for months. Such were the outfit and stores of the
aeronef—in addition to the famous trumpet.

There was besides a light india-rubber boat, insubmersible, which
could carry eight men on the surface of a river, a lake, or a calm
sea.

But were there any parachutes in case of accident? No. Robur did not
believe in accidents of that kind. The axes of the screws were
independent. The stoppage of a few would not affect the motion of the
others; and if only half were working, the "Albatross" could still
keep afloat in her natural element.

"And with her," said Robur to his guests—guests in spite of
themselves—"I am master of the seventh part of the world, larger
than Africa, Oceania, Asia, America, and Europe, this aerial Icarian
sea, which millions of Icarians will one day people."

The President of the Weldon Institute was stupefied; his companion
was astonished. But neither of them would allow any of their very
natural amazement to be visible.

The valet Frycollin did not conceal his terror at finding himself
borne through space on such a machine, and he took no pains whatever
to hide it.

The suspensory screws were rapidly spinning overhead. Fast as they
were going, they would have to triple their speed if the "Albatross"
was to ascend to higher zones. The two propellers were running very
easily and driving the ship at about eleven knots an hour.

As they leaned over the rail the passengers of the "Albatross" could
perceive a long sinuous liquid ribbon which meandered like a mere
brook through a varied country amid the gleaming of many lagoons
obliquely struck by the rays of the sun. The brook was a river, one
of the most important in that district. Along its left bank was a
chain of mountains extending out of sight.

"And will you tell us where we are?" asked Uncle Prudent, in a voice
tremulous with anger.

"I have nothing to teach you," answered Robur.

"And will you tell us where we are going?" asked Phil Evans.

"Through space."

"And how long will that last?"

"Until it ends."

"Are we going round the world?" asked Phil Evans ironically.

"Further than that," said Robur.

"And if this voyage does not suit us?" asked Uncle Prudent.

"It will have to suit you."

That is a foretaste of the nature of the relations that were to
obtain between the master of the "Albatross" and his guests, not to
say his prisoners. Manifestly he wished to give them time to cool
down, to admire the marvelous apparatus which was bearing them
through the air, and doubtless to compliment the inventor. And so he
went off to the other end of the deck, leaving them to examine the
arrangement of the machinery and the management of the ship or to
give their whole attention to the landscape which was unrolling
beneath them.

"Uncle Prudent," said Evans, "unless I am mistaken we are flying over
Central Canada. That river in the northwest is the St. Lawrence. That
town we are leaving behind is Quebec."

It was indeed the old city of Champlain, whose zinc roofs were
shining like reflectors in the sun. The "Albatross" must thus have
reached the forty-sixth degree of north latitude, and thus was
explained the premature advance of the day with the abnormal
prolongation of the dawn.

"Yes," said Phil Evans, "There is the town in its amphitheater, the
hill with its citadel, the Gibraltar of North America. There are the
cathedrals. There is the Custom House with its dome surmounted by the
British flag!"

Phil Evans had not finished before the Canadian city began to slip
into the distance.

The clipper entered a zone of light clouds, which gradually shut off
a view of the ground.

Robur, seeing that the president and secretary of the Weldon
Institute had directed their attention to the external arrangements
of the "Albatross," walked up to them and said: "Well, gentlemen, do
you believe in the possibility of aerial locomotion by machines
heavier than air?"

It would have been difficult not to succumb to the evidence. But
Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans did not reply.

"You are silent," continued the engineer. "Doubtless hunger makes you
dumb! But if I undertook to carry you through the air, I did not
think of feeding you on such a poorly nutritive fluid. Your first
breakfast is waiting for you."

As Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans were feeling the pangs of hunger
somewhat keenly they did not care to stand upon ceremony. A meal
would commit them to nothing; and when Robur put them back on the
ground they could resume full liberty of action.

And so they followed into a small dining-room in the aftermost house.
There they found a well-laid table at which they could take their
meals during the voyage. There were different preserves; and, among
other things, was a sort of bread made of equal parts of flour and
meat reduced to powder and worked together with a little lard, which
boiled in water made excellent soup; and there were rashers of fried
ham, and for drink there was tea.

Neither had Frycollin been forgotten. He was taken forward and there
found some strong soup made of this bread. In truth he had to be very
hungry to eat at all, for his jaws shook with fear, and almost
refused to work. "If it was to break! If it was to break!" said the
unfortunate Negro. Hence continual faintings. Only think! A fall of
over four thousand feet, which would smash him to a jelly!

An hour afterwards Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans appeared on the deck.
Robur was no longer there. At the stem the man at the wheel in his
glass cage, his eyes fixed on the compass, followed imperturbably
without hesitation the route given by the engineer.

As for the rest of the crew, breakfast probably kept them from their
posts. An assistant engineer, examining the machinery, went from one
house to the other.

If the speed of the ship was great the two colleagues could only
estimate it imperfectly, for the "Albatross" had passed through the
cloud zone which the sun showed some four thousand feet below.

"I can hardly believe it," said Phil Evans.

"Don't believe it!" said Uncle Prudent. And going to the bow they
looked out towards the western horizon.

"Another town," said Phil Evans.

"Do you recognize it?"

"Yes! It seems to me to be Montreal."

"Montreal? But we only left Quebec two hours ago!"

"That proves that we must be going at a speed of seventy-five miles
an hour."

Such was the speed of the aeronef; and if the passengers were not
inconvenienced by it, it was because they were going with the wind.
In a calm such speed would have been difficult and the rate would
have sunk to that of an express. In a head-wind the speed would have
been unbearable.

Phil Evans was not mistaken. Below the "Albatross" appeared Montreal,
easily recognizable by the Victoria Bridge, a tubular bridge thrown
over the St. Lawrence like the railway viaduct over the Venice
lagoon. Soon they could distinguish the town's wide streets, its huge
shops, its palatial banks, its cathedral, recently built on the model
of St. Peter's at Rome, and then Mount Royal, which commands the city
and forms a magnificent park.

Luckily Phil Evans had visited the chief towns of Canada, and could
recognize them without asking Robur. After Montreal they passed
Ottawa, whose falls, seen from above, looked like a vast cauldron in
ebullition, throwing off masses of steam with grand effect.

"There is the Parliament House."

And he pointed out a sort of Nuremburg toy planted on a hill top.
This toy with its polychrome architecture resembled the House of
Parliament in London much as the Montreal cathedral resembles St.
Peter's at Rome. But that was of no consequence; there could be no
doubt it was Ottawa.

Soon the city faded off towards the horizon, and formed but a
luminous spot on the ground.

It was almost two hours before Robur appeared. His mate, Tom Turner,
accompanied him. He said only three words. These were transmitted to
the two assistant engineers in the fore and aft engine-houses. At a
sign the helmsman changed the-direction of the "Albatross" a couple
of points to the southwest; at the same time Uncle Prudent and Phil
Evans felt that a greater speed had been given to the propellers.

In fact, the speed had been doubled, and now surpassed anything that
had ever been attained by terrestrial Engines. Torpedo-boats do their
twenty-two knots an hour; railway trains do their sixty miles an
hour; the ice-boats on the frozen Hudson do their sixty-five miles an
hour; a machine built by the Patterson company, with a cogged wheel,
has done its eighty miles; and another locomotive between Trenton and
Jersey City has done its eighty-four.

But the "Albatross," at full speed, could do her hundred and twenty
miles an hour, or 176 feet per second. This speed is that of the
storm which tears up trees by the roots. It is the mean speed of the
carrier pigeon, and is only surpassed by the flight of the swallow
(220 feet per second) and that of the swift (274 feet per second).