battery acting on a system of wires. The wire did not seem to consume very rapidly, and it was supplied by automatic machinery from a large coil fixed under the binnacle. I have said "no doubt electric." I ought to add that the machinery which produced the light had no perceptible effect on the car's compasses nor yet on mine.
As soon as we got into the car Jack proceeded to raise it, as Niccolo Davelli had done, by inflating the balloons. This cannot be quickly done by any but a practised hand. If one who has had no practice tries it, the balloons are apt to get unequally inflated, and so the operator in bringing them every now and then to a state of equal inflation works the car from side to side with a rolling motion. Signor Davelli raised it quickly, without any rolling motion at all. This was only the second day of practice for Jack, but he managed by raising the car slowly to produce very little of the rolling motion.
As soon as he had attained what he judged a sufficient height he connected the batteries with the paddles, and as the wind was, as the sailors say, "dead aft," we soon began to make very great speed.
I noticed now a point in the machinery which I had not observed before. There was a valve to each balloon,
