RECENT ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES 127 



can ever be built. It was not intended that man 

 should travel or carry burdens through the upper 

 regions of the air. First, because the law of the 

 earth's electric attraction forbids it. Second, be- 

 cause the sudden and powerful wind and electric 

 currents that pervade the upper regions of the at- 

 mosphere are sure to bring ruin and death, sooner 

 or later, and no human power can prevent it. 



The balloon or airship is only a dangerous toy 

 which can be useful perhaps in times of war to 

 spy out the enemy, but utterly useless otherwise, 

 and which means death in a very short time to 

 all who risk their lives in its treacherous power. 



There have been tw r o recent and striking exam- 

 ples of this in the case of the two distinguished 

 experts in Paris who thought they had built air- 

 ships that could overcome the powers of nature, 

 and while proudly exhibiting them to their family 

 and friends were hurled to a sudden and fearful 

 death. 



The many deaths and narrow escapes from these 

 useless and dangerous toys make it almost certain 

 that no sane man would risk his life in one of them, 

 though there were a thousand at his command free 

 of expense. 



Of all the useless follies on which inventive genius 

 and money have been expended, the airship is the 

 worst, because if millions of the most perfect ones 

 the imagination of man can conceive were built 

 and offered free, no prudent man would risk his 

 life or his goods in their treacherous care. The 

 powers of nature, and what the ancients called the 

 demons of the; air, forbid that the airship should 

 ever be anything more than a dangerous toy for 



