His fortunes were at their lowest when he arrived in New York on April 6, 1844. He and his family found rooms in Greenwich Street, near Cedar, now the thick of the business district. “The house is old and looks buggy,” he wrote to a friend, but it was the best he could do with less than five dollars in his pocket. He had to have more money. The newspapers seemed to be the most available place to get it, and the _Sun_ the livest of them. Speed--that was what they wanted. They had been having ocean steamers until they were almost sick. Railroads were unromantic. Horses were an old story. The telegraph was still regarded as theory, and it hardly appealed to the imagination. Pigeons? Perhaps there was inspiration in the sight of Sam Patch preening himself on a cornice of the _Sun’s_ building. A magnified pigeon would be an air-ship. Poe sat him down, wrote the “balloon hoax,” and sold it to Mr. Beach. It appeared in the _Sun_ of April 13, 1844. Beneath a black-faced heading that was supplemented by a woodcut of three race-horses flying under the whips of their jockeys and the subtitle “By Express,” was the following introduction: ASTOUNDING INTELLIGENCE BY PRIVATE EXPRESS FROM CHARLESTON, VIA NORFOLK!--THE ATLANTIC OCEAN CROSSED IN THREE DAYS!!!--ARRIVAL AT SULLIVAN’S ISLAND OF A STEERING BALLOON INVENTED BY MR. MONCK MASON. We stop the press at a late hour to announce that by a private express from Charleston, South Carolina, we are just put in possession of full details of the most extraordinary adventure ever accomplished by man. _The Atlantic Ocean has actually been traversed in a balloon, and in the incredibly brief period of three days!_ Eight persons have crossed in the machine, among others Sir Everard Bringhurst and Mr. Monck Mason. We have barely time now to announce this most novel and unexpected intelligence, but we hope by ten this morning to have ready an extra with a detailed account of the voyage. P. S.--The extra will be positively ready, and for sale at our counter, by ten o’clock this morning. It will embrace all the particulars yet known. We have also placed in the hands of an excellent artist a representation of the “Steering Balloon,” which will accompany the particulars of the voyage. The promised extra bore a head of stud-horse type, six banks in all, and as many inches deep. “Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk!” it announced. “The Atlantic Crossed in Three Days!--Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason’s Flying-Machine!!!--Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, Near Charleston, of Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and Four Others in the Steering Balloon Victoria, after a Passage of Seventy-Five Hours from Land to Land--Full Particulars of the Voyage!!!”