Page:The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonsales, to the World in the Moon.djvu/26

20 the Flock that Way, but with Might and Main took up toward the Top of the Pike, and never stopt till they came there, a Place in vulgar Estimation (though since experimentally contradicted) fifteen Miles in Height. What kind of Place this was I would gladly relate, but that I hasten to Matters of greater Importance: When I was set down there, my poor Gansas fell to panting, blowing, and gaping for Breath as if they would all have died, so I did not trouble them awhile, forbearing to draw them in, which they never used to endure without struggling, but little did I expect what followed.

It was now the Season that these Birds take their Flight away, as our Cuckows and Swallows do in Spain towards Autumn, and as I afterwards found, being mindful of their usual Voyage, just when I began to settle myself to take them in, they with one Consent rose up, and having no other higher Place to make toward, to my unspeakable Fear and Amazement, struck bolt upright, and never left towring upward, still higher and higher, for the Space, as I guest, of an Hour, after which I thought they laboured less than before, till at length, ah wonderful! they remained immoveable, as steadily as if they had sat upon so many Perches; the Lines slacked, neither I, nor the Engine moved at all, but continued still, as having no Manner of Weight. I found then by Experience, what no Philosopher ever dreamt of, namely, that those Things we call heavy do not fall towards the Center of the Earth as their natural Place, but are drawn by a secret Property of the Globe of the Earth, or rather something within it, as the Load-stone draweth Iron, which is within the Compass of its attractive Beams. For though my Gansas would continue unmoved, without being sustained