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172
Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies
·
Fulgence Marion
15
Those
scientific
romances
were
simply
wild
exaggerations,
based
upon
the
thinnest
foundation
of
scientific
facts.
In
order,
however,
to
describe
a
journey
among
the
stars,
it
was
necessary
to
invent
some
mode
of
locomotion
in
these
distant
regions.
In
former
times
Lucian
had
been
content
with
a
ship
which
ascended
to
the
rising
moon
upon
a
waterspout;
but
it
was
now
necessary
to
improve
upon
this
very
primitive
mode,
as
people
began
to
know
something
more
of
the
forces
of
nature.
One
of
the
first
of
these
travellers
in
imagination
to
the
moon
in
modern
times
was
Godwin
(1638),
and
his
plan
was
more
ingenious
than
that
of
Lucian.
He
trained
a
great
number
of
the
wild
swans
of
St.
Helena
to
fly
constantly
upward
toward
a
white
object,
and,
having
succeeded
in
thus
training
them,
one
fine
night
he
threw
himself
off
the
Peak
of
Teneriffe,
poised
upon
a
piece
of
board,
which
was
borne
upward
to
the
white
moon
by
a
great
team
of
the
gigantic
swans.
At
the
end
of
twelve
days
he
arrived,
according
to
his
story,
at
his
destination.
A
little
later
another
writer
of
this
peculiar
kind
of
fiction,
Wilkins,
an
Englishman,
professed
to
have
made
the
same
ascent,
borne
up
by
an
eagle.
Alexandre
Dumas,
who
recently
wrote
a
short
romance
upon
the
same
subject,
only
made
a
translation
of
an
English
work
by
that
author.
Wilkins’
work
is
entitled,
“The
Discovery
of
a
New
World.”
One
chapter
of
the
book
bears
the
title,
“That
‘tis
possible
for
some
of
our
posterity
to
find
out
a
conveyance
to
this
other
world;
and,
if
there
be
inhabitants
there,
to
have
commerce
with
them.”
It
is
thus
that
the
right
reverend
philosopher
reasons:--
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
