He said, further, that the President and heads of departments at Washington were fully cognizant of the matter; and that a third grand trial-trip, in the interest of government, had been secretly made, with important dispatches to California, relating to the security of our rights in the Pacific. Four days had been consumed in the passage out, including a stoppage of a couple of hours on a fine plateau, near the head waters of the Missouri, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains; and the same in the return. They had landed in the night in a deep valley a few miles out of San Francisco, and remained two days in that city; which gave a period of ten days to the entire voyage, out and back. Forty selected individuals, all bound to secresy, had participated in the risks and excitements of the extraordinary occasion. Mr. Bonflon was not of the number. An heroic daughter of his was. His partner, Mons. De Aëry, a French gentleman of great mechanical skill, had managed the affair; and the craft, in the same hands, was now absent on her second expedition across the American continent. Such was the sum of Mr. Bonflon's revelations of the morning. What a discovery! How the announcement would astonish the world! How the practical fact would overturn the world, upset commerce, and transform the habits and relations of mankind! America, the pioneer in many valuable discoveries and reforms, was still ahead,--still destined to lead the van in the development of the powers and resources of Nature, and the onward march of nations. Hurriedly recalling all these points to mind, I requested to know of Mr. Bonflon how it had been possible, with so many confidants and the prying propensities of the press, whose agents, like an invisible police, are everywhere, to keep the matter from becoming public,--at least, to cover the affair so completely that no hint of the existence of his machine should have been given in any quarter, or of the vast changes which its introduction as a power in the world could not fail to effect. To this he replied, that the press had behaved very handsomely; that the principal papers of the country had _attachés_ aboard on the first trip to the Pacific; but that all parties--the government, the editors, together with De Aëry and himself--were agreed that the matter should be kept strictly private, until its practicality and value should be established beyond the possibility of question. I now remembered, that, several years ago, a good deal of noise had been made about a flying-machine which had been constructed in some of the suburbs of the city,--and that a day had been advertised when it was to make an ascent, but, it failed. I mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Bonflon.