Trial Trip of the Flying Cloud

All this was explained to me in much fuller detail than I can here repeat, by Mr. Bonflon, who added, that the materials employed combined lightness with strength to a much greater degree than had ever before been achieved, -- that the fuel used was of the fluid kind, a new combination of concentrated combustibles invented by himself, -- and that the weight of the entire machine had been carefully calculated beforehand, together with its buoyant power.