them all, and that is that God would surely never allow such a
machine to be successful, since it would create many
disturbances in the civil and political governments of mankind.'

He ends by saying that no city would be proof against surprise,
while the aerial ship could set fire to vessels at sea, and
destroy houses, fortresses, and cities by fire balls and bombs.
In fact, at the end of his treatise on the subject, he furnishes
a pretty complete resume of the activities of German Zeppelins.

As already noted, Lana himself, owing to his vows of poverty,
was unable to do more than put his suggestions on paper, which
he did with a thoroughness that has procured him a place among
the really great pioneers of flying.

It was nearly 200 years before any attempt was made to realise
his project; then, in 1843, M. Marey Monge set out to make the
globes and the ship as Lana detailed them. Monge's experiments
cost him the sum of 25,000 francs 75 centimes, which he expended
purely from love of scientific investigation. He chose to make
his globes of brass, about .004 in thickness, and weighing 1.465
lbs. to the square yard. Having made his sphere of this metal,
he lined it with two thicknesses of tissue paper, varnished it
with oil, and set to work to empty it of air. This, however, he
never achieved, for such metal is incapable of sustaining the
pressure of the outside air, as Lana, had he had the means to
carry out experiments, would have ascertained. M. Monge's
sphere could never be emptied of air sufficiently to rise from
the earth; it ended in the melting-pot, ignominiously enough,
and all that Monge got from his experiment was the value of the