Read Online The Balloonist by MacDonald Harris - Free Book Online

little cryptic. Perhaps I have only intercepted a message intended for someone or something else.
    I will confessthat this thing I have stumbled across fascinates me to the point of ecstasy, and also that it seems to me vaguely dangerous. Dangerous how? I don’t know. It is simply that there is an element of necromancy in all this which, in the privacy of my own mind, I quite candidly regard as ominous. If you go sticking your finger in nature’s private parts you do so at your own risk, and at the risk of all humanity. In the Middle Ages the alchemists, without understanding what they were doing, groped about with their cauldrons and retorts in an effort to turn lead into gold. Instead they discovered the principle of chemical combination, which in turn gave birth to gunpowder, and an entire civilization of castles and cathedrals crashed to the ground, the alchemists bleeding under the ruins along with everybody else. (It is true that gunpowder was invented by the Chinese, but I am speaking analogically.) It is characteristic of man that he is annoyed by secrets, that as soon as he is aware there is something to be known that he does not know he wants to know it, whether or not the knowing will make him happy. In the end it is perhaps this that will destroy him.
    In the meanwhile, however, it is likely that we have a century or more to be happy or unhappy before this development takes place. Particularly in the case of aeromagnetic waves, it is unlikely that they will destroy us in the near future. On the contrary, it is probable that for a time they will be of great practical use. I am perfectly well aware of the investigations being conducted in this sphere by Hertz, by Signor Marconi, and by others. In my opinion these endeavours have every chance of succeeding. Consider: if static electricity is made to leap from one brass ball to another, the spark will cause a compass needle to be deflected in the room below, as much as thirty feet away. The fact was noted by Trowbridge as early as 1880. This being the case, there is no reason why, if the electric spark upstairs is interrupted in accordance with the system of Morse’s code, a message cannot be read downstairs on the compass, even though no wires connect them. Could such a contrivance work in an airship? Undoubtedly. Over long distances? Possibly. In no case am I going to hint of this to Waldemer. He has quite enough to occupy his mind as it is. If he ever suspected that the apparatus in the leather case might be used to send messages to the outside world, he would be composing drivel for it night and day. Including,no doubt, our “sensations,” such as the fact that our noses are cold and we are enjoying our dinners, and also our delight at the efficient functioning of the apparatus. This has already happened in the case of the ordinary telegraph worked by wires. A man sits in Chicago and taps out, “How well this telegraph works.” And the operator in New Orléans replies, “Yes, the telegraph is a great invention.” No, decidedly, the practical possibilities of aeromagnetism must be concealed from Waldemer.
    In prophesying the weather, however, a great deal is possible even with my limited understanding. Having tickled the galena crystal with the hairspring, I satisfy myself that a normal amount of bacon frying is going on in the earpiece. Now comes the difficult part—detecting the direction of the chief mass of the emanations. Ahah, Professor Eggert, we are back to directions! Your suspended iron rods and your duck didn’t quite work, but you were on the right track. By listening to these ethereal scratchings I will send this airship not in the direction it wants to go but in the direction I want it to go. This is made possible by a modification to that part of the apparatus called by some investigators the aerial wire and by others the antenna, through analogy to the fragile erections attached to the brains of certain