machinery--to attempt its advertised flight round the walls of Paris,
is still reposing, in inglorious idleness, upon its stocks in the
Chantier Marbeuf (Champs Elysées), to the woful disappointment of its
enthusiastic inventor, who, however, consoles himself with the hope of
coming over to London for the purpose of testing his invention, as
soon as the return of fine weather shall render it prudent to make the
trial journey. In justice to M. Pétin, we would observe, that the sole
point which he hopes to prove with this vessel is, _the possibility of
obtaining a fulcrum in the air_, justly considering that if the
question of _steering_ were affirmatively settled, the necessary
means, pecuniary and other, would soon be forthcoming to enable him to
improve upon, or to change the original construction, and to build the
mammoth vessels, containing closed apartments, warmed and fitted up
with every provision for comfort, in which he hopes to transport
several thousands of passengers at a time, and at a speed which it
almost takes away one's breath to think of.

'For, urges M. Pétin, if we could once succeed in getting a fulcrum in
the air in spite of its elasticity, this very elasticity would then
enable us, with suitable motive-power, to move with a degree of
rapidity far transcending the possibilities of locomotion in any other
element. In fact, it would seem, according to M. Pétin's computations,
that we might breakfast in London, lunch in Constantinople, dine in
China, dance the evening out in Havannah, and get home to bed at an
hour not much later than that at which the votaries of fashion usually
betake themselves to their slumbers.

'The reasoning by which our inventor arrives at the seemingly
paradoxical conclusion, that the air is destined to be the high-road
_par excellence_, and to serve as the medium of transportation for the