whatever direction it might be sought to be established. The Balloon,
passively suspended in the air, without the exercise of a propulsive
power, experiences no effects whatever from the motion of the
atmosphere in which it is carried, however violent; and the
establishment of such a propulsive power could never subject it to
more than the force itself, with which it was invested. The _way_
which the Balloon so provided would make through the air would always
be the same, in whatever direction, or with whatever violence the wind
might happen to blow; and the condition of the Balloon would always be
the same that was due to its _own independent_ rate of motion,
without regard to any other circumstances whatever. If it was
furnished with the means of accomplishing a rate of motion equal to
ten miles an hour, it would experience a certain amount of atmospheric
resistance due to that rate; and this amount of resistance with
all its concomitant consequences, neither more nor less, would it
experience, whether it endeavoured to make this way _against_ a
wind blowing at the rate of 100 miles an hour, or _with_ the same
in its favour. The result, so far as regards its distance from the
place of starting, would, I grant, be very different; but at present
we are only considering the conditions of its motion through the
_air_, and these, I repeat, would be the same whatever the rate
or course of the wind; so that all speculations on this score
must resolve themselves into questions of _quantity_, not of
_quality_, in the effect sought to be accomplished: in other
words, all consideration of the rate of the wind must be left out of
the argument, except, in so far as it shall be taken to regulate the
limit which shall be assigned to the rate of the aerial machine, as
sufficient to justify its claims to the title of a successful mode of
navigating the skies.[A]