"Dropping below the basket is a metallic lifeboat, in which is placed an Ericsson engine. Captain Ericsson's invention is therefore to be tried in mid-air. Its particular purpose is the control of a propeller, rigged upon the principle of the screw, by which it is proposed to obtain [Page114] a regulating power. The application of the mechanical power is ingeniously devised. The propeller is fixed in the bow of the lifeboat, projecting at an angle of about forty-five degrees. From a wheel at the extremity twenty fans radiate. Each of these fans is 5 feet in length, widening gradually from the point of contact with the screw to the extremity, where the width of each is 1½ feet. Mr. Lowe claims that by the application of these mechanical contrivances his air-ship can be readily raised or lowered, to seek different currents of air; that they will give him ample steerage way, and that they will prevent the rotatory motion of the machine. In applying the principle of the fan, he does not claim any new discovery, but simply a practical development of the theory advanced by other aeronauts, and partially reduced to practice by Charles Green, the celebrated English aeronaut. "Mr. Lowe contends that the application of machinery to aerial navigation has been long enough a mere theory. He proposes to reduce the theory to practice, and see what will come of it. It is estimated that the raising and lowering power of the machinery will be equal to a weight of 300 lbs., the fans being so adjusted as to admit of very rapid motion upward or downward. As the loss of three or four pounds only is sufficient to enable a balloon to rise rapidly, and as the escape of a very small portion of the gas suffices to reduce its altitude, Mr. Lowe regards this systematic regulator as quite sufficient to enable him to control his movements and to keep at any altitude he desires. It is his intention to ascend to a height of three or four miles at the start, but this altitude will not be permanently sustained. He prefers, he says, to keep within a respectable distance of mundane things, where 'he can see folks.' It is to be hoped his machinery will perform all that he anticipates from it. It is a novel affair throughout, and a variety of new applications remain to be tested. Mr. Lowe, expressing the utmost confidence in all the appointments of his apparatus, assured us that he would certainly go, and, as certainly, would go into the ocean, or deliver a copy of Monday's _Times_ in London on the following Wednesday. He proposes to effect a landing in England or France, and will take a course north of east. A due easterly course would land him in Spain, but to that course he objects. He hopes to make the trip from this city to London in forty-eight hours, certainly in sixty-four hours.