This was the latest news ever heard of the ill-fated voyagers. Later on two of Andrée’s buoys, thrown out from the balloon, were found; but the messages these contained were dated on the evening of July 11th, only a few hours after the start. If the date of the first found message can be relied on, it would seem that after forty-eight hours Andrée’s balloon was still sailing well, and he had already accomplished the longest voyage aloft ever made. Of his subsequent fate, and that of his companions, nothing is known. Search expeditions have failed to find any trace of them or of the balloon, and the many rumours received have been proved to be false. There can be no possible reason to doubt that these brave men perished in their daring attempt, and that their bones lie in the Arctic Sea or in the waste of ice and snow that surrounds the Pole. CHAPTER VI THE AIRSHIP So far in our story we have traced the origin and progress of the balloon, showing how from small beginnings it has grown to be an important invention, of great use to the scientific observer, the soldier, and the explorer, and the means of teaching us much fresh knowledge. But in spite of the high hopes of early aeronauts, and the extravagant prophecies made when the first balloons ascended into the sky, it has long been evident that the balloon alone has not solved the problem of human flight or accomplished the conquest of the air. An ordinary balloon is, in fact, nothing more than a mere lifting machine, no more capable of sailing the sky, in the proper sense of the word, than a cork floating in the water is capable of sailing the sea. It has no movement of its own, but drifts simply at the mercy of the wind, and quite beyond control. By the discharge of ballast, or by the letting out of gas, the aeronaut can indeed cause it to rise or sink at pleasure, and sometimes when two currents of air are blowing aloft in different directions at the same time he may, by passing from one to the other, “tack” his balloon to some extent across the sky. Otherwise he has no power of guiding or directing it in the least degree, and should he lose sight of the earth above the clouds, has even no method of telling in which direction he is travelling.