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And then the boys-for Heaven's sake, don't slight 'em-
Alfred and Albert, and AD INFINITUM.

Call at Vienna, Paris, and Berlin,
Constantinople, Moscow, Teheran,
And if you find the royal carcass in,
O'ercome their modesty by proper plan.
Give them a pen, and if that's too thin,
Pay them to take it! And if any man
Refuse both offers, challenge him to fight,
Let fly your ballast, and get out of sight!

But all this while we have, indeed, forgot
To make for your dread journey fit provision,
To keep your records fair and free from blot,
And have them written out with due precision,
Let bakers and the butchers prig and plot
To place your food before your hungry vision;
We give a pen-for heroes the sole key
That sways the doors of Immortality.

A word before we part-a word well said
At parting. If you should, by night or day,
By wine or work, get dizzy in the head,
So that you seem or dream you lose your way,
Remember Gordon Bennett is not dead,
And Stanley lives-but sub rosa, we say;
If you would have success their efforts crown,
Don't lose yourself while going up, but down.

Professor Wise responded at length. The following is an imperfect synopsis of his reply:
"Small as this incident may seem to some people, to me it gives great encouragement. It is one of the daily assurances that all classes of people are at last awakening to assist in the solution of one of the most advanced problems of history, which is the attainment of the best means for the utilization of the atmosphere as a power, as a medium of communication, as a field of scientific research, and as a source of one of the most exhilarating pastimes known to man.
"If man is the master spirit of the world, he must show himself to be competent to rule the earth, the water, and the air. His mastery on earth and sea, after centuries of struggle, is universally acknowledged, but his efforts to control the atmosphere are as yet in their infancy. But the men of the future will, no doubt, seek recreation and food for thought, as much in the upper atmosphere as the men of the present day seek these things in public parks, in the bowels of the earth, or at the bottom of the sea. There will come a time when the family balloon will be about as common as the family carriage is now, and when the same spirit which now supplies boulevards and public parks will express itself by supplying the means of obtaining a flight like the eagle's, and a speed like the wind.
"I am no visionary. My convictions are the outgrowth of nearly forty years of experience. But I acknowledge to having made one mistake, and this little incident to-night forcibly reminds me of it. If I had used my pen more than I have done, I would not to-day, after 446 ascensions, find more doubters than believers in my theory. Without a shadow of doubt, the aeronautic crossing of the Atlantic would have been an accomplished fact, and on every fine day, near our large cities, the sky would have been studded with pleasure-seeking balloons.
"This incident is also one of the many reminders of the fact that I owe my present opportunity to test my theory entirely to the Press, the organic expression of the power of the Pen. Holding these views, with all sincerity I thank you for your beautiful token, and, sink or swim, I warmly return your friendly greeting."
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SDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1873.
Read Before the Metereological Section of the Franklin Institute; at its Regular Meeting, Oct 6, 1873, by John Wise.
In a treatise upon the motion of the two great elements that cover our planet, but which I intend to devote mainly to a meteorological principle that has recieved but little observation from the searching scientist, a glance at the motion and currents of the sea, would seem to me to be a proper introduc-

-tory. The water and air are so intimately related, and so inseparately associated, that it is technically true to say that the one cannot exist in the entire absence of the other. We may consider them as separate bodies, but not as separate essences. Even in their habitudes and motions we cannot fairly estimate the force and quantity of the one, without a due allowance for the part played by the other. True, we find a normal motion of the sea, and we shall also find a normal motion of the atmosphere. The Gulf-streams and tides attest the one, and the constant movements of the upper clouds from west to east, the motion of the other. While that of the sea, as manifested in its tides and Gulf-streams, is laid down with some accuracy as to its surface drifts, the under-currents in its great depths, are still a profound mystery. That a constant and regular interchange of cold and warm water is going on between the polar and the equatorial seas by sub-marine currents is a necessary result of its positive conditions, and is not to be questioned, but its organic circulation as a constant of nature, is not defined. It stands in a scientific point of view, as did the circulation of the blood before Harvey's time. There is nothing that gives so much importance and interest to the polar expeditions as this great question of marine circulation, that itself must solve the problem of an open Polar Sea. The warm sub-currents of the equatorial waters, whose ridged tops shows themselves in surface Gulf-streams as they flow from the equatorial zone to the polar area; and, again, in the counter-drift of the icebergs from the Arctic seas towards the equator, are too well-known to allow of any doubt about the interchange of cold and warm water currents in the ocean body. The heated water flowing from the equatorial seas that finds its way to the surface as it reaches and permeates the polar area, and where the axial motion of the earth is nil, throws out an immense quantity of vaporized water, which as it meets the cold air condensed into snow and ice that settles down around the arctic circle or polar area, agreeably to the laws of temperature and moisture; and in its processes forms a rim of ice and a barrier around the polar basin. The open polar sea rests as an indentation within this ice-girt barrier, which has ever baffled the Arctic explorers from getting beyond its limits. The inner side of this ice-wall receives the rays of the sun perpendicular to its surface for many days without the intermission of night, and produces that genial temperature, which attracts the sea-fowl and land animals as the sun in its northern declination warms it up. During the warm season the ice rim breaks up and sends down the great ice floes that obstruct the ships of the explorers. Hence, the ice-wall in the winter, and the ice-floes in the summer are equally formidable in hindering the attempts to reach the vicinity of the polar centre. This untrodden area can only be reached by way of the atmosphere and with the balloon, or a better flying machine, in order to unlock this mysterious chamber of our earthy cosmogony to the searching inquiry of the scientific observer. While I claim for this view of the subject the facts in the case, and form these the necessary results as warranted by science, I also beg it as a question for the heroic devotion of the Arctic explorers, and as a stimulus for the atmosphere investigators, who claim as a scientific fact the normal and circulating motion of the atmosphere from west to east, so modified in this motion by the thermal inequalities existing between the equator and the poles of the earth, as to render it a medium of transition, on which to float airships from one part of our planet to any other point. This may be deemed somewhat visionary, but to the searching mind and to those who have had some experience in that way it looms up as a substantive consideration and one worthy of all diligence and persevering devotion that intrinsic love of science can and does inspire. It may find its initiatory step of solution in the enterprise and spirit  of no less a personage than P.T. Barnum, who has vowed that it shall be tried, and that he stakes the last feather in his cap to the attempt of the solution of the problem, and who exclaimed, in his conference on the subject, but a few days ago: "Why this great ocean of air that surrounds us, if not intended for the use of man, as well as is the sea; certainly it is not for the birds alone!"
Let us now look heavenward and take a view at the ways of the air. This element, a stepping-stone, as it were, between the ponderable and imponderable things of nature, as little regarded by the common observer as it is difficult to be seen by him, is, nevertheless, more intimately related and interwoven with his life and doings than at first thought appears. He cannot live five minutes outside of its presence. Speaking of the ponderable and imponderable elements, it is accepted by the learned physicist that the imponderable are the most potent elements of Nature. Even to the wayfaring person it is known that the invisible bolt, with its forked trail of flame, shot down from a cloud of transforming vapor, as it releases its force will knock the life out him more suddenly than would a bomb shell shot out of an iron mortar. But we had better return to our elemental stepping-stone -the atmosphere- and see what we may be fair deductions search out of it. As to its normal motion from west to east the upper clouds constantly attests. You might as well look for the Gulf grass to be drifting from Newfoundland towards the Gulf of Mexico, as to look for the civri or upper cumuli to be drifting from east to west. It would be the phenomenon of the axial motion of the earth reversed. It is unnecessary for me, in this short treatise, to enter into the details of effect upon the eastward motion of the air produced by the axial motion of the earth in its variable surface velocity as existing between that on the equator and its gradual decrease towards the pole, where it becomes nil; and its obedience to the law of temperature. That part of the subject of this great cosmical action has been so intelligently explained in an ably digested article on the question by Dr. W. H. Wahl, the learned Secretary of the Franklin Institute, that I deem it unnecessary here to say anything upon those details. There is another element, however, that comes into the consideration of this question, and which has been too much overlooked, in this matter. I refer to the effect upon the air of the cool shades of night, and that of the warm sun during the day. Here are two positively ascertained realities coming in that have a most important bearing on the subject, and which in themselves are sufficient to explain the motion of the air from west to east, and in which your essayist has had some experience. Does the night shadow cool and condense the air? It does the gas in a balloon, I know? Does the day-sun expand the air? It does the gas in a balloon, I also know! All aeriform fluids are subject to the law of expansion by heat and contraction by cold. How now about this eastward current question?
I have long ago ascertained that the balloon travels faster in the early part of the night than it does in the day time; and have also learned, as a rule, that in the early part of the Summer, my aerial voyages went north of east, and in the late Fall and Winter south of east. This will be explained further on. When I stated to Professor Henry that the balloon floated faster in the evening than it did in the daytime, and ventured the explanation that the cooling shade of night coming up in front caused a condensation of the air in that direction, and a consequent increased motion of the inflowing air from the sun-warmed side of the earth, he answered in the following words: "That would be in accordance with meteorological principles." Just so, and upon sound meteorological principles is established, not a theory, but a science that the normal motion of the atmosphere is from west to east always, as it is a science that the motion of the earth is in the same direction upon true astronomical principles. Now, why are the balloon drifts when high up a little north of east in the early Summer, and a little south of east in the Fall and Winter? As shown above, the motion of the air is caused by variations of heat and cold; and it is safe to say that without these thermal alternatives there could be no winds at all. As the sun in his declination northwards warms up the higher latitudes lying between the tropics and the frigid zone, so will the trend of atmosphere motion be in the same direction. So, again, in the return of the sun southward will be the trend of motion that way - producing northwest winds in Winter, and southwest winds in Summer. The northwest and the southeast trades of the intertropical belt are "undertow," and are changed into eastward currents in the higher equatorial stratum. All our cyclones are brought up from the southwest in this air tide.
Now, when we consider this effect of air condensation by virtue of the cooling process of the shades of night as a main cause of the eastward motion of the atmosphere, what shall we find? Precisely what the philosophic poet calls for:
"Now come, my Ariel, bring a corollary,
Rather than want a spirit."
We shall find as inevitable corollary that the course of the atmosphere will be in its cosmical motion from West to East. It could not be otherwise if it is true that earth revolves upon its axis in the same direction, and that its equatorial zone is hot, and its polar areas are cold, and that the rate of velocity of its surface gradually diminished from its equator to its poles, and a gradual diminution of heat in the same direction. This constitutes a solution of the question upon true meteorological principles. It is corroborated by no inconsiderable amount of experience and a constant assertion of fact; and is besides in harmony with the law of motion in the universal cosmogony. Local deviations of air-motion do not detract in the least degree from the science of the question, but when they are discriminately examined and mathematically estimated go to sustain it.
This very elastic and mobile fluid is susceptible of wonderful movements. If we could see its individual atoms in action, and its aggregated mass, as swelled into its voluminous tides, we would no doubt exclaim, "How wonderful are the works of Nature."
We have yet much to earn of this vast sea of ether; and the balloon is the vehicle to serve us in the work, as that takes us face to face into it, and explains how it is substantive, and how it may be used as a way to travel in, and to learn us that the upper