Jules Verne by Robur the Conqueror Page A

moves horizontally.
    The whole of Robur's flying apparatus depended on these two
movements, as will be seen from the following detailed description,
which can be divided under three heads—the platform, the engines of
suspension and propulsion, and the machinery.
    Platform.—This was a framework a hundred feet long and twelve wide,
a ship's deck in fact, with a projecting prow. Beneath was a hull
solidly built, enclosing the engines, stores, and provisions of all
sorts, including the watertanks. Round the deck a few light uprights
supported a wire trellis that did duty for bulwarks. On the deck were
three houses, whose compartments were used as cabins for the crew, or
as machine rooms. In the center house was the machine which drove the
suspensory helices, in that forward was the machine that drove the
bow screw, in that aft was the machine that drove the stern screw. In
the bow were the cook's galley and the crew's quarters; in the stern
were several cabins, including that of the engineer, the saloon, and
above them all a glass house in which stood the helmsman, who steered
the vessel by means of a powerful rudder. All these cabins were
lighted by port-holes filled with toughened glass, which has ten
times the resistance of ordinary glass. Beneath the hull was a system
of flexible springs to ease off the concussion when it became
advisable to land.
    Engines of suspension and propulsion.—Above the deck rose
thirty-seven vertical axes, fifteen along each side, and seven, more
elevated, in the centre. The "Albatross" might be called a clipper
with thirty-seven masts. But these masts instead of sails bore each
two horizontal screws, not very large in spread or diameter, but
driven at prodigious speed. Each of these axes had its own movement
independent of the rest, and each alternate one spun round in a
different direction from the others, so as to avoid any tendency to
gyration. Hence the screws as they rose on the vertical column of air
retained their equilibrium by their horizontal resistance.
Consequently the apparatus was furnished with seventy-four suspensory
screws, whose three branches were connected by a metallic circle
which economized their motive force. In front and behind, mounted on
horizontal axes, were two propelling screws, each with four arms.
These screws were of much larger diameter than the suspensory ones,
but could be worked at quite their speed. In fact, the vessel
combined the systems of Cossus, La Landelle, and Ponton d'Amécourt, as
perfected by Robur. But it was in the choice and application of his
motive force that he could claim to be an inventor.
    Machinery.—Robur had not availed himself of the vapor of water or
other liquids, nor compressed air and other mechanical motion. He
employed electricity, that agent which one day will be the soul of
the industrial world. But he required no electro-motor to produce it.
All he trusted to was piles and accumulators. What were the elements
of these piles, and what were the acids he used, Robur only knew. And
the construction of the accumulators was kept equally secret. Of what
were their positive and negative plates? None can say. The engineer
took good care—and not unreasonably—to keep his secret
unpatented. One thing was unmistakable, and that was that the piles
were of extraordinary strength; and the accumulators left those of
Faure-Sellon-Volckmar very far behind in yielding currents whose
ampères ran into figures up to then unknown. Thus there was obtained
a power to drive the screws and communicate a suspending and
propelling force in excess of all his requirements under any
circumstances.
    But—it is as well to repeat it—this belonged entirely to Robur.
He kept it a close secret. And, if the president and secretary of the
Weldon Institute did not happen to discover it, it would probably be
lost to humanity.
    It need not be shown that the apparatus possessed sufficient
stability. Its center of gravity proved that at once. There was