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be heartily welcomed, and placed upon a footing to carry out his experiment successfully. We are unable to state the time of the proposed ascension, but it will most likely be the next anniversary of the birth of her Majesty.'
  We know that our townsman is now constructing the balloon for this very ascension, and that it is to be made in honor of the Queen's birth-day, the 24th of May next. The balloon will bear the name of Victoria, and the motto, original we believe, of Loyalty rests upon the love of the sovereignty that nurtures it. We understand that Mr. W. has also a proposition before the corporation of the City of Boston for a Trans-Atlantic voyage to start from Boston Common, on the 4th of July next.
The Old Court House.
[For The Express.]
  Oh! thou model of beauty. Thou tabernacle of olden Democracy! Now that thou art passed away we have no more place wherein to congregate. How my heart mourns for the days that have passed away with you. Times there were when in mass meeting the goodly people came together in all matters concerning the commonwealth, within and without the county, and where and when within thy stately, ventilated walls, the eloquent words of good republican faith and Christian liberty were uttered--uttered by those whose voices are now hushed in the silent grave. Their shadows have departed with you-noble old edifice! So has the privilege--yes, the liberty--for it was a glorious liberty to have a common decent shelter, where the commoners of our once glorious county dared come together in thy stately hall. Liberty of speech--fair justice--open council--honest progress--liberal christianity--all there were dispensed from thy familiar rostrum with a bounteous hand. Then and there, the lords and plebians often sat together, but now it is changed. The Rabbi sit within the sanctum of a new synagogue, and the Rabble sit without, and that in systematic quaternal periods wherein the contrast marks its phases as does the dark side with the light side of the moon. The goodly plebeian middle class come not there, unless perforce they do by the way of phlebotomy--food for the Rabbi, and fun for the white spirts and gray. Three well proportioned and athletic Commissioners sit there also, who jurisdiction hold, not over the synagogue alone, but over the republican rights and privileges of an hundred thousand or more of orderly, well appointed people, who never but once, equal to their three lordly peers, enjoyed the use of its curtained epistles. And then they were only allowed the meagre privilege to sign away their rights to the money-tills in which they had garnered the fruits of honest toil.
  From that time the people fell; and their cherished rights--the right to to the stadthouse, wherein to commune in fraternal reunions--fell with them. The great and rich--those whose honors and preferments were garnished by the dimes and dollars of the industrious poor--they too were scattered, expatriated, some nearly imprisoned--one poor scape-goat quite--some crept within their barbed coats of mail, like the porcupine, in sombre mood, to eat the fat of their compressed victims.
  Such has been the legacy of that Vandal age that has razed thee to the ground, thou old and cherished temple of liberty. Where thou stoodest there now stands vacuity--an empty, hollow square, where the twelve tribes of Israel are mocked by dilapidated and locomotive statuary. Fish-mongers, and the venders of Dutch cheese, defile thy hallowed esplanade with the vile odor of their merchandise. Oh! that thy pristine days might return unto us!--that thy mocking progeny, with its grand transepts and architraves may be opened unto us! Then "the day of jubillee has come." Then publicans once more will have the privilege of coming face to face with their rulers, in a common hall--but oh! AMEN.
[[handwritten]]* y[[\handwritten]]
  ERRATUM: In the article on the Old Court-House the sentence "curtained epistles" should have been printed, curtained epistyles.
INTERESTING LECTURE TO-NIGHT AT THE PALACE GARDEN-MUSIC HALL, CORNER OF FOURTEENTH STREET AND SIXTH AVENUE.-Mr. John Wise who has made some three hundred ascensions during his career as aeronaut, during twenty-four years, will lecture to-night as above, on "Air Navigations, and the mysterious currents three miles high," which he is as familiar with as ordinary people are with flag-stone pavements. This is preparatory to his efforts to construct a balloon to cross the Atlantic in. A lecture of unsurpassed novelty and interest may certainly be expected. He is certainly "quorum pars."
PROFESSOR WISE.
To the Editor of the British Whig.
  Mr. Editor,-Having noticed through your paper that the citizens of Kingston have on several occasions been disappointed in the matter of Balloon ascensions, permit me to say that it will not be so in regard to the engagement Mr. J. D. Huntington has made for my contemplated Ærial voyage from your city on the next anniversary of the Queen's Birthday.
  I have built a balloon expressly for the occasion, have named her and labeled her "VICTORIA," in honor of the occasion; and I have done so more from sincerity than formality, because I think Her Majesty is one of God's noblewomen-a woman in the fullest and most dignified sense of the word-a mother of her country, as well as a
  I have undertaken a series of ascensions for the coming season, professionally, and for this reason:--Not seeing a certainty before me by which I shall become possessed of the requisite amount of means with which to complete my experimental outfit for the purpose of demonstrating the practicability of Æronauting across the sea to Europe, and from Europe eastward, across Asia and the Pacific Ocean, and clear around the globe, unless I put my hand to the wheel and earn the money. I determined upon this course by an appeal to the friends of progress, to raise such means. I feel confident that my appear will meet with such a response, that, in three months--should my life and health be spared--I shall be enabled to announce the long wished for event--that an Ærial voyage will be made across the Atlantic Ocean by me. For this alone I live and move upon the earth; without its hope life would be a nullity to me. I have proposed to the Corporation of Boston to make the experimental trip from their city to Europe, provided they would furnish the simple cost of the outfit; but as that is yet uncertainty--although I am ready and anxious to act upon it at a moment's warning--I have determined on this professional tour as a contingency to render its execution more proximate and certain.
  The highway of the atmosphere must have an expanded exploration--a demonstration of fact as to its adaptation for fleet and easy travel--before the world will even believe that such a thing is within the province of man's ingenuity and uses. A trip across the Atlantic in the space of two or three days, followed by a trip around the globe in twenty days, would do much to bring the subject fairly before the civilized public. That is the whole aim and object of my life; and its accomplishment will discharge me honorably from a destiny that Providence has carved out for our day and generation.
  You may rest assured that any appointment made for me by Mr. Huntington will be punctually regarded and met by
    Your obed't. serv't.,
      JOHN WISE.
  Lancaster, Pa., March 22, 1860.

Wise, the Aeronaut, and California.
  Mr. John Wise, the aeronaut, is desirous of crossing the continent, in a big balloon, and he has written to a friend in this city, suggesting that if San Francisco will furnish the money to build a balloon, he will come out, superintend the work, and risk his life in making the trip to New York. He says:
  "Upon mature deliberation I would prefer to make the experiment across our American continent from the Pacific coast of California to the Atlantic side of the country, for the following reasons: It would not require any sea apparatus, and would also enable me constantly to tell my whereabouts. It would afford me constant means to halt, without exposure to an unknown sea. It would enable me to investigate the effect of the Cordilleras and Rocky Mountains upon the upper currents. It would enable me to give a very good description of the general topography of the route by which the balloon would cross. It would be a valuable acquisition towards the means necessary to establish the great railroad route to be built, essentially necessary to a proper development of the interterritorial regions of our great and fertile continent. To the building of this road, on the most feasible route, the balloon becomes indispensably necessary. It would be the precursor of a regular letter mail between the Pacific and Atlantic States. It would have the effect of more rapidly subjugating the wilder tribes of Indians to the requirements of our fast expanding civilization. Ie would, in short, bring San Francisco and New York within sixty hours of each other.
  "These, with many other considerations, are the reasons why I should like to make some developing experiments from the Pacific side of our continent. The city of San Francisco has grown into an importance commensurate to such an enterprise; more than enough to give it a superior claim to its institution, than have the three large cities on the Atlantic coast to an outfit across the ocean to Europe. By the accomplishment of the transcontinental trips in a systematic manner, the transatlantic trips will become a matter of course.
  "If I can secure the patronage in California to put the enterprise into operation, I will engage in that first, and should do so at all events, were it not for the greater expense of preparing such an outfit there than in the East.
  "Maury's system of wind currents may be properly called the science of the winds. There is as much certainty and regularity in the great upper currents of the atmosphere as there is in the circulation of the blood. These currents are not chance blasts of air, as many persons supposed, but they are the effect of a great law of nature, as exact in their general motions as are the planets in their orbits round the Sun. Like the gulf-streams of the oceans, and the great tidal waves that roll over the Southern hemisphere, they are obedient to the powers that put them in motion, in accordance with the grand design of God in forming the universe.
While these developments are comprehensive [[not visible]]ind that has st[[not visible]]m, the world [[not visible]] be prepared to receive [[?]] with faith and [[not visible]] and thus it becomes necessary to give the thing [[not visible]]ular demonstration, in order to bring to its aid that help and genius, without which all great ideas would remain abstractions and nonentities to the practical world. A trip or two from San Francisco to the Atlantic sea-board cities, would dispel the unbelief of its feasibility, and would also turn the hand of genius to its perfection; and if the enterprise and generosity of the people of your great Pacific metropolis is sufficient to its speedy realization, the head and hands to put it into operation are already in waiting for the trial. If your citizens will but intimate the command to its trial, I am ready and anxious to obey the command, and without fee or reward for my services."
*LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.
  ÆRIAL NAVIGATION--INTERESTING LECTURE BY PROF. WISE: Prof. John Wise, of this city, delivered a lecture at the Palace Gardens, New York, on Tuesday evening, upon his favorite topic. The Herald, from whose report we copy, says that the audience was not large, but it made up in intelligence what it lacked in numbers, and throughout the evening evidently warmly sympathized in the meritorious object of the lecturer. Among the notabilities present was T. Carlincourt Lowe, who was extensively advertised last fall to make an ærial voyage to Europe, but from various causes failed to go up. He informed the Herald's reporter, however, that his arrangements for the purpose were all perfected, and that within a few weeks, or as soon as the weather was settled, the ascension then deferred would certainly take place.
  Prof. Wise was introduced by Mr. De Forrest, and commenced by saying that, as he had chosen a select subject for his lecture, the fact that he had a small and select audience to address would not deter him from speaking as freely and fully as if a crowded house were present to greet him. The art of navigating the air was yet in its infancy--and, notwithstanding there was an estate above us which invited man to take the wings of the wind and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, it was one which must encounter many difficulties before it could be brought to perfection. Though not more than three quarters of a century have elapsed since the first experiment was made with an aerostatic machine, comparing its progress with the advance of other arts to which the world is indebted for its prosperity, ballooning is half a century ahead of the age; and, if the spirit of mechanical progress necessarily requisite for a high attainment of scientific principles keeps pace with the onward march of intellect, he believed that the time would come when our children would travel to any part of the glove, at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. In such a view the art stands out in prospective grandeur, worthy of the most ardent application of genius, and the support of both the nation and the individual. Something more, however, than mere experiments of a few hours' duration, was necessary to inspire the public with confidence in the art. That the air is navigable is no longer to be denied. Its practicability only, as a generally useful art, is simply doubted. Steam, the agent which has revolutionized the moral and commercial world within the present century, might have remained what it was in the beginning to the present day, had not a Fulton demonstrated its utility by building a steamboat and propelling it up the Hudson at the rate of four miles an hour. So with ærial navigation--something more is wanting than mere theorizing to bring it to that state of perfection which art, science and the genius of our race demand. So far as the mere navigation of the air is concerned, it has already been demonstrated that there is a current of air constantly moving from west to east, at a rapidity varying from thirty to one hundred miles an hour, according to its height from the earth. In my own experience I have found this to be a fact, without what may be called a single exception, and the celebrated æronaut, Charles Green, of England, who has made more than five hundred ascensions, has, in his own experience, repeatedly verified the same fact.
  The lecturer here read a statement from Mr. Green, showing the different altitudes in which he found this westerly current to more or less prevail. Prof. Wise referred to the natural systematic circulation of the air, and said that the ancients must have been well acquainted with the subject, for in the first chapter of Ecclesiasties [[Ecclesiastes]], sixth verse, it is recorded, "The wind goeth towards the north and turneth about towards the south. It wheeleth continually, and the wind returneth again to its circuits." Such was in reality the case. It was well known to meteorologists that at the equator there was a zone about five hundred miles in breadth in which the wind was continually rushing from east to west. Being always under a vertical sun this air becomes rarified, goes up in a northwest direction, finally ascends to the polar circle, forms an eddy there, whence it returns again to the temperate zone, and thence proceeds to the torrid zone, where it performs its unending circuit. Between the parallels thirty and sixty, therefore, it was feasable [[feasible]] at all times to sail from west to east, so that if a balloon were to leave the city of New York, it could, by rising and falling to accommodate itself to the different currents it would encounter, go into Northern Europe, or directly across in the same latitude in which it started to France or Spain; or, taking a still lower current the voyage might sail down upon