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Not to be discouraged at these things, the resolve was equal to the task. The air vessel was soon constructed. Although the manipulation of its construction was something new, the task was not near as tedious as the attempt to make a perpetual motion. Having read Cavallo on the atmosphere, and deduced therefrom certain natural and mechanical principles, it only required a practical perseverance to the success of the undertaking. While the work had been going on, to fly, were my thoughts by day, and my dreams by night. So thoroughly had I become imbued with the idea of flying, that it seemed to me the faculty could be acquired without the aid of an air-bag, or even mechanical wings. And were it not for the inevitable law of gravitation, coupled to that still greater difficulty found in the law of specific gravity, I should not have given up that idea as a vain thought.

"What goes up must come down," is the shortest, and most comprehensive, treatise that was ever written of this great principle inn nature. But it does not follow that every thing happening to go up from this earth, must come back to its surface again. Specific gravity is only a measure of value of the law of gravitation, and thus the earth's gravitating influence is only relative, and the possibility of getting towards the central nucleus of this universal principle must depend altogether upon the property and quality of matter, capable of overcoming the specific gravity, or special gravitating force of the earth.

Hydrogen gas possesses this advantage to a considerable extent, and in course of time we may learn how to appropriate that still more subtle fluid, electricity, by the aid of which even the bounds of our atmosphere may be jumped, and then we shall be enabled to enjoy all the privileges of the second heaven, without the now undesirable method of shaking off the mortal coil, in order to get ourselves for the like transitions through the spirit worlds.

Transcription Notes:
*Tiberius Cavallo was an Italian physicist and natural philosopher.