The band at the hotel was kept playing every day at luncheon and dinner, and it discoursed sweet music in the ballroom regularly upon hop nights to auditors, who found—as all people can find—more of the physical comforts and delights of life at Coronado Beach than anywhere else in the world, for nowhere else is there such music in the sea, such balm in the air, such sunshine, and fragrance, and healing, and rest. The faith and patience of the owner of the great hotel were, in the end, rewarded. Month by month and year by year did the numbers of his guests increase, until, in 1895, the capacity of the house was more than doubled, by the addition of a building something over a quarter of a mile in length, and the great hotel could now accommodate quite two thousand guests. David Morning selected Coronado Beach for his dynamic experiments, and, with some difficulty, chartered the entire hotel for one month, during which time it was reserved exclusively for his guests. He also leased the northerly end of the Coronado Beach peninsula for the construction and equipment of his air ship, and for a laboratory for the manufacture of potentite. The real Coronado Islands are within the territorial jurisdiction of Mexico, situated about sixteen miles south and west from San Diego Bay, and were, except in cloudy weather, distinctly visible from Coronado Beach. Irregular and ragged masses of red sandstone a few thousand acres in extent towered to a height of several hundred feet above the ocean, faintly staining the horizon with patches of blue, resembling an unfinished sky in water color. These islands were destitute of water and vegetation, and never inhabited save by a few laborers who were engaged in quarrying rock there, and Morning found no difficulty in purchasing them from their owners, and removing all the occupants. On the northern end of the Coronado Beach peninsula, Morning caused to be erected a laboratory for the manufacture of potentite, with which to load the steel shells to be carried by the air ship. This new dynamic force, or, rather, storehouse of force, consisted of a combination of explosive gelatine with fulminate of mercury, and possessed a power equal to thirteen hundred tons to the square inch, or sixty times that of common blasting gunpowder, and nine times that of dynamite, and fifty pounds of it properly directed would sink any ironclad afloat. It is quite safe for manipulation, because it is unexplosive, except when brought in contact with a chemical substance—also non-explosive except by contact—which is only added immediately before using.