case ot ine onok, win necessarily ue losi 

 ill britiKUig about these conditions for 

 rapid H'glu. You understand that the 

 ^ustaiiiiiiM surfaces of the ship, like that 

 A' the duck, will be small and suitable 

 to rapid flight. 



A— Mr. B, 1 want to know something 

 about how we are going to bring about 

 the conditions of the duck in our air- 

 ship? Will the possibilities of mechanics 

 and sources of t-nergy permit thist to 

 be accomplished? 



U— Mr. A, while we baye not quite 

 reached the poss^ibilities of mechanics 

 necessary for this condition,, it seems as 

 though it would not require much inven- 

 tion to bring it about. And I will say 

 that gas and petrolfum engines appear 

 to be most suitable. There appears no 

 reason why they can not be reduced 

 to an fxcedmgly small weiglit— to as 

 low as two or three pounds per horse 

 Dower I will venture to say. And in 

 regard to their sources of energy, ihey 

 ful-till that all-important condition, in 

 supplying the energy fa^t as required. 

 We do not require all this heavy ma- 

 chinery, boilers, water condensors and 

 so on, to be carried on the ship, as in 

 case of the steam engine, to bring about 

 that result. When we have thus reduced 

 the weights of the engines, we have that 

 difiBculty practically removed, in regard 

 to the weight of the fuel, we need fear 

 no difficulty, when it is considered that 

 one pound of petroleum contains fifteen 

 million foot pounds of energy; and 

 there is no reason why we cannot secure 

 two-thirds of this for useful mechanical 

 work, when we make a little more pro- 

 gress. All we require is to bring to per- 

 fection the gas and petroleum engines, 

 and we can soon have an air-ship, capa- 

 ble of traveling at a great velocity in 

 the face of the heaviest tornado that 

 ever blew. 



A— Mr. B, from what source will you 

 secure your gas in case you use a gas 

 engine? 



B— It will be stored at a very high pres- 

 sure in a reservoir on bonrd the ship. If 

 you care to make the calculations it will 

 not be ddlicult to determine the number 

 of foot pounds of energy which can be 

 thus stored, to each pound weight of 

 the reservoir. 



A— Mr. B, In order then that our 

 sliip shall reach this great velocity, and 

 in view of the fact of its heavy loss of 

 power even if we have on board a large 

 supply of energy, it will sooner or later 

 becuue exhausted. 



B— Stations shall be arranged at suit- 

 abe points along the air-ship line 

 where the ship lands and secures new 

 supplies of inergy. And the distance 

 apart at which these stations should be 

 placed will, depend on how far a supply 

 of energy will carry the ship. While 

 Lhe ship consumes its supply of energy 



-8- 



\r ATirww ■ 



IIJ WL SUUI L IIUJC, WItil ItO f^lcaL v^l\JKjlt,y 



it will travel a great distance during that 

 time. And here let me remark, that 

 the above mentioned air-ship with the 

 stored compressed air and enlarged 

 nozzles is suitable to operate on this plan. 

 A — Mr. IJ, What is your idea in regard 

 to transforming the energy of petroleum 

 directly into electricity? Of course you 

 are aware, if it can be accomplished, of 

 the advantaaes which would result, to 

 aerial navigation. 



B— While su(^h a discovery would be 

 of priceless value, it seems to me that it 

 will never he made. Yet there is such 

 a great unknown just before u-*— so much 

 to discover and so little that has been 

 discovered that we know not what is in 

 sti)re for us. Mr. A, you are aware that 

 by decomposing zinc with an acid that 

 its stored energy, its chemical affinity, 

 is released and comes forth in the form 

 of electricity. But suppose you try de- 

 composing iron or steel with this acid, 

 and its energy i-.omes out in the form of 

 heat, with n « electricity about it. I be- 

 lieve the reason zim; gives forth elec- 

 tricity, is because of its pxtraordinary 

 ciemiial con-s icuiion, whicu no other 

 material known to the writer possesses; 

 and it seems that it is not likely that 

 petroleum possesses this condition in the 

 absence of that iu thousands of other 

 materials which do not possess it. To 

 come right to the point Mr, A, it is un- 

 doubtedly a fact, that the mode of the 

 atomical motion brought about by the 

 decomposition of zinc, is alltogether dif- 

 ferent from that of other materials, and 

 this mode of motion happens to be the 

 same as that brought about in the coils 

 of a dynamo by the magnets passing 

 them. Heat is evidently a simple recip- 

 rocating atomical motion. While in the 

 case of electricity, we have the best of 

 evidence by its manifestations, if not pos- 

 itive proof, that it consists in a rotary 

 reciprocating motion, of polarized atoms 

 on an axis. It seems to me that a fa- 

 miliar substance like patroleum, if it con- 

 tains the possibility of giving forth elec- 

 tricity, would have given some manifes- 

 tation of it through accident or experi- 

 ment. Now Mr. A, while I hope my 

 views are wrong in regard to this, 1 fear 

 they are correct. And if they are, there 

 will be other methods developed which 

 will contain as small a weight per horse 

 power in machinery as is possible in this 

 case. 



And in bringing our discussion to a 

 close, I will venture to say that the 

 dawning of the twentieth century will 

 find us operating air-ship lines across 

 continents exploring the unknown regions 

 of the earth by their aid, and possibly 

 soaring across the seas. 



Barset N. Botts, 

 Paso Robles, 



January 1st., 1894.] California. 



