The Secret of Aerial Flight Revealed

NOT a thousand miles from the Golden Gate may be found residing a man of quiet, unobtrusive presence, living in a snug cottage over-looking the ocean, surrounded by, perhaps, three or four acres of vineyard. The product of the vines is not, however, his chief means of support. The gentleman is well fixed, as the term is, in matters of finance, and the vineyard is simply a means whereby he is enabled to pursue his peculiar studies uninterrupted by the curious, who might otherwise intrude upon his labors were it supposed that he was not what he appears to be in that locality—a grape-grower. The cottage is a small dwelling of perhaps half a dozen rooms, and beside it is a long, one-story structure, at the end of which is a tall lattice fence thickly covered with vines which effectually hide the interior of the inclosure. The gentleman is about fifty years old; that is, he looks to be about that age, and is evidently of foreign extraction, having dark skin, thoughtful dark eyes and the general characteristics of the Hindoo race. I am not at liberty to state just how I came to learn of his peculiar work, but will describe as clearly as I can what it is, and leave to the thinking portion of The Call's readers whatever inference they may draw.

Necessarily much of what I here write must be in the words of the gentleman himself. As I entered the garden-like inclosure, beside the cottage, my attention was arrested by what I took to be a pleasure boat. It was about twelve feet long and five wide, forming a very convenient carriage for half a dozen persons. On each side of the body of the boat was a wing-like blade hinged, and over the boat, supported by six slender rods, was a broad sheet of metal larger than the breadth and length of the boat, and probably a quarter of an inch in thickness, which glittered and glistened with all the hues and tints of the rainbow. But the strangest part of the affair was that the boat was not resting upon the ground, but was attached to it by a couple of stout cords. As I stood looking at the thing with astonishment depicted on my face, the gentleman approached the boat, which swayed to and fro about three feet from the ground, and placing his hand upon a metal knob, just inside the boat's edge, I saw it sink to the earth and again rise to the limit of the ropes. Not a word of explanation was offered me concerning the queer affair; but I was requested to step inside, and I followed into the shed beside the cottage. The shed proved to be a workshop. In one corner was a small gasoline engine and a dynamo. Along one side of the long room extended a workbench, and shelves. An abundance of tools were present. At the further end of the room was a large furnace, now cold, and on the shelves were a number of elaborate electrical instruments. I saw on the workbench a piece of the same material as that of which the boat cover was made, and I took it in my band. It was very light, and was evidently some kind of metal. My host smiled as I examined the material, and asked me what I thought of it. I asked, "What is it?" "Radlum," he replied. "It is a metal. I am not aware that it is obtainable except in Thibet, on the southern slope of the Himalayas, near Tirthapuri, and here on the western slope of the Coast Range. It occurs in the soil as a telluride, and the metal is procured by thoroughly washing the soil, rejecting all portions that are not dissolved water, then evaporating the solution. The solid portion remaining, in the form of an impalpable powder, is then subjected to a peculiar process of electrification, resulting in the production of what you now have in your hand. It is exceedingly strong, its tensile strength surpassing that of steel. Its iridescence is due to the microscopic wrinkles upon its surface. But that is not all of its characteristics. It possesses the remarkable qualities of being easily rendered apergent." "What?" I exclaimed.

"Apergent," he replied. "Apergy is a force obtained by blending positive and negative electricity with ultheic, the third element or state of electric energy, and a body charged with this fluid, 'apergy,' is not only unaffected by gravitation, it is repelled from the earth with the same or greater force than that with which it formerly was attracted, so that if the body is liberated it will move away into space. Radlum is as yet the only material I know of that will retain the apergic force. You surely must, as a chemist, know," said my host, "that neither synthetical nor analytical chemistry will satisfactorily account for certain phenomena constantly occurring. The world will never learn true science until it is ready to learn from nature's open books. Everything in the material universe is constructed upon a system of triads. In other words, there are always three phases or conditions of the same thing. Water may be a solid, a liquid or a gas, and in each manifestation be only water. Just so in everything. Electricity is known to the many as only positive and negative, while in fact its third condition is never absent, although unrecognized. An apple falls to the ground from the tree, and science announces that a subtle force called gravity brought the apple down. But as to the second or its third phase science knows nothing, and, in fact, is apparently too conceited to desire to learn. I have learned something about the opposite force—the second phase of gravity. I call it 'apergy.' The boat that you saw swaying in the yard has its roof stored with apergy sufficient to cause it to lift the boat with me in it and soar to any height that I may wish to reach."

"But," I asked, "how can you control your ascent or descent?"

"Simply enough," he answered. "The inner sides of the boat are lined with a number of thin bands of specially prepared metals, forming, in fact, a very powerful storage battery of the 'dry' type, as no liquid is required. Perhaps you might better understand it by comparing it to a leyden jar, only its discharge is slow—not all at once. There are two complete systems of these bands, each insulated from the other. When I use the boat I first charge one set of bands with positive electricity from yonder dynamo and then charge the other set with negative electricity from the same source. Then I join the like poles of the two systems and, of course, thus connected, get no current that would be measurable by an ordinary galvanometer; one system is neutralizing the other; but now using the two systems of bands connected as a single circuit, I charge them with a further current of what you may call 'static' electricity and create a force which, applied to certain material capable of storing it, as does radlum, produces apergy in that material. I can weaken or destroy the apergy in the radlum by a reversal of the direction of the applied current. Thus, I am able to increase or diminish the buoyancy of the boat. Did you ever think what was that marvelous power that maintains the planets in their positions as regards the sun? Gravity alone will not fill the requirements. That force alone would simply precipitate them upon the sun. But apergy acting with gravity holds them as they are. The apergic force of the sun repels and his gravity attracts. In the meantime, as the sun is swiftly moving himself through space his family of satellites is moving with him and the apergic force harmoniously blended with the gravic force circles them around the central power, for the reason that the two forces are never always exactly of the same intensity. They regularly alternate; one is always a little more powerful than the other. Nothing in nature is absolutely uniform. She abhors many things besides a vacuum. There is no such thing as a perfect circle in nature."

F. M. Close, D. Sc.