Armageddon Author:Stanley Waterloo Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ON THE PRAIRIE. It's pretty hard work, trying to tell about Appleton's invention. He had engaged the services of some clever fellows, all of one... more » family, I think, and they were working for him and were of great service to us, to the end of our stay on the prairie, though not confidentially so as was an odd fellow who came later. I Suppose that I am not a good person to tell what the invention was. I can only do so in a general way and within my limitations. The main feature was a great torpedo- shaped thing with an aluminum exterior. The thickness of this aluminum covering was a matter of constant and violent debate between Appleton and me, after I became identified with the enterprise. With no weight to speak of, it meant vast buoyancy; with a greater weight it meant less buoyancy and more disaster following the inevitable experimental alighting. Appleton, after much thought and numberless experiments, had decided to take chances with this buoyant thing, to make it as light as possible, and to rely upon the utilization of the vast force he had at his command, and which was now being first tried,— in driving in a certain direction something floating in a surrounding the same above as below, something entirely immersed in one element. Appleton had gathered together as far as he could, the forces necessary for the accomplishment of his work. He had stored electricity; he had reservoirs of compressed and liquified air; he had wonderful contrivances for the reduction of friction and the reduction of weight as compared with force. I was doubtful at first, but I've long had faith in aerial navigation—I've always had since a talk years ago ,with the most famous of living inventors, when he gave his views on the. subject, and I saw plainly that Appleton's "Lifting ma...« less