But though the idea of emigrating by means of balloons to foreign worlds was relinquished, there still existed a desire to render them subservient to important terrestrial purposes, and various suggestions were made as to the uses to which they might be applied. It was proposed to employ their power of ascension as a mechanical force for raising water from mines, for transporting obelisks, and placing them on greater elevations, or for raising, without any scaffolding a cross or a vane to the top of a high spire. It was proposed that they might be employed as a means of making an escape from surrounding icebergs in the ocean, or for effecting a landing to otherwise inaccessible mountains, and observing their cloud-capped peaks--for exploring the craters of volcanoes--for traversing vast swamps and morasses--and for the improvement of the infant science of meteorology. It was besides predicted that they would become a safe, easy, and expeditious mode of traveling, and of conveying the products of every land and clime from one part of the globe to another. It is long since Dr. Dick suggested, in his "Christian Philosopher," that the missionaries of the cross might yet be able to avail themselves of the aid of balloons in going forth to distant regions to proclaim to the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that then there would be a literal fulfillment of the prediction of the last of the inspired seers, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." But to only two purposes has the ascending power of the balloon been as yet applied--to the reconnoitring of hostile armies, by the French, for a short time--and, in one or two instances, to the making of scientific observations. Only a single attempt, and a very absurd one, has been made to get up a traveling balloon. The gold-hunters of America, impatient of the slow process by which ships transport them to the golden regions of California, and, as if determined to press the air into the service of giving them a speedier conveyance, lately proposed to build a balloon, to carry them out at the rate of 200 miles per hour. A model of the machine was exhibited in New York and Philadelphia, and it created considerable sensation in the minds of the credulous. It was stated, in a respectable journal of New York, in 1849, that the machine was actually in course of construction, and the steam-engine finished, but nothing more has since been heard of it. "Had these projectors," says Mr. Wise, "gone on from their miniature model, to the erection of one capable of carrying one or two persons, in order to prove its practicability on a larger scale, there might have been reason to believe that they harbored an idea of its general usefulness. But when the project embraced at once so magnificent a