Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/232

228 ascend as I told you from the earth, and in doing so the earth will travel westward from us at a greater or less speed in proportion to the distance we are from its surface, and if we again bring the earth's attraction into play, we will descend on the earth and travel with it. But this alone would be a very useless advantage, as we could only make easting, and it is here that the north and south, east and west lines of force come into play. The earth's attraction is destroyed or modified at will by a great instrument carried in the bottom of each vessel, and the lines of forces are utilized at will by other instruments, which act as steering and pulling engines. You see that by allowing the vessel to ascend and descend, bringing the red or blue lines of forces into play, any position of the earth's surface can be reached, the direction north and south being controlled by the lines of force at different altitudes."

I here ventured to ask how it was possible for them to steer their vessels without any land marks.