e stronger than the air!"

And then the assembly exploded. What a broadside of yells escaped
from all these mouths, aimed at Robur like the muzzles of so many
guns! Was not this hurling a declaration of war into the very camp of
the balloonists? Was not this a stirring up of strife between 'the
lighter' and 'the heavier' than air?

Robur did not even frown. With folded arms he waited bravely till
silence was obtained.

By a gesture Uncle Prudent ordered the firing to cease.

"Yes," continued Robur, "the future is for the flying machine. The
air affords a solid fulcrum. If you will give a column of air an
ascensional movement of forty-five meters a second, a man can support
himself on the top of it if the soles of his boots have a superficies
of only the eighth of a square meter. And if the speed be increased
to ninety meters, he can walk on it with naked feet. Or if, by means
of a screw, you drive a mass of air at this speed, you get the same
result."

What Robur said had been said before by all the partisans of
aviation, whose work slowly but surely is leading on to the solution
of the problem. To Ponton d'Amecourt, La Landelle, Nadar, De Luzy, De
Louvrie, Liais, Beleguir, Moreau, the brothers Richard, Babinet,
Jobert, Du Temple, Salives, Penaud, De Villeneuve, Gauchot and Tatin,
Michael Loup, Edison, Planavergne, and so many others, belongs the
honor of having brought forward ideas of such simplicity. Abandoned
and resumed times without number, they are sure, some day to triumph.
To the enemies of aviation, who urge that the bird only sustains
himself by warming the air he strikes, their answer is ready. Have
they not proved that an eagle weighing five kilograms would have to
fill fifty cubic meters with his warm fluid merely to sustain himself
in space?

This is what Robur demonstrated with undeniable logic amid the
uproar that arose on all sides. And in conclusion these are the words
he hurled in the faces of the balloonists: "With your aerostats you
can do nothing--you will arrive at nothing--you dare do nothing!
The boldest of your aeronauts, John Wise, although he has made an
aerial voyage of twelve hundred miles above the American continent,
has had to give up his project of crossing the Atlantic! And you have
not advanced one step--not one step--towards your end."

"Sir," said the president, who in vain endeavored to keep himself
cool, "you forget what was said by our immortal Franklin at the first
ap