CHAPTER V
THE EQUIPMENT FOR
THE VOYAGE–(Continued)
Recently, while relating to a lady friend some parts of this story, I had occasion to enumerate in a kind of general way the articles that made up the bulk of our equipment.
“In the name of truth,” exclaimed she, with a look of intense surprise, “how did you manage to pack so much junk into so small a space?”
“Now, Miss M––, if it appears to you to be inconsistent with reason that so much could be packed into so small a space,” I replied, “please get and keep in mind three things: first, that the ship was not by any means a mere toy; secondly, that the way in which a great many of the bulky articles of equipment were turned to ready use prevented our having to pack them away in receptacles; and thirdly, that the manner in which nearly all the food supplies were prepared for packing called for less room than otherwise would have been required.”
“I want you to tell me,” demanded the young lady impatiently, “where you placed all these things. I can not understand how you had room to move about.”
“Just beneath the floor of the sitting room, which was twelve feet above the ground, and extending entirely around the craft,” responded I, “was a line of cargo chests prepared especially for packing away stores of every kind necessary.”
“Where did you place the huge compressors, the cooking stoves, and the beds ?” she inquired. “I should not think,” she added, “that you stored them away with the rest of the things in the receptacles.”
“The air compressors, the large storage batteries, and the cooking stoves were installed in out-of-the-way places,” answered I, “and were ready for immediate use when the need demanded it. The couches on which we slept were securely fastened to the walls, and when not in use, folded back with the bedding out of the way and out of sight like the upper bunks in a Pullman palace car.”
“And the mammoth Wright biplane which you say was sixty-five feet from tip to tip of the wings–how did you pass it in at the door,” she asked, “and where did you find room for it after you got it on the inside ?”
“The biplane and the car were separated completely into their component parts,” I explained, “and together with the food supplies, gasoline, etc., stored away in compact bulks in the chests. In short, not an article of equipment was visible in the sitting room, except the fifteen large chairs, the table on which sat the typewriter, and the large telescope and its mountings.”
“It appears to me,” said she, “that your food supplies would have taken up an immense amount of space.”
“Profs. Monahan and Galvan, two eminent scientists and very prominent members of our party,” replied I, “thought that possibly we might be surrounded, at least much of the time during the voyage, by physical conditions favorable to the decomposition of our food
supplies. For this reason, they advised and directed that our commissary stores, and especially the milk, the eggs, the meat, the fruits, and the vegetables, be conserved by some process of drying and powdering; and their orders were carried out, which greatly reduced the bulk and the weight of this class of supplies.”
“By what means,” then inquired she, “did you preserve your store of provisions?”
“The machine used for this purpose,” I said in reply, “is a comparatively recent invention of Mr. G. A. Krause, an engineer of Munich, Germany. By the application of a centrifugal force, rather than by that of heat, this combination of mechanical powers quickly and absolutely extracts the last vestige of moisture in a few seconds, from any and all kinds of foodstuffs, without removing any of the valuable ingredients. A gallon of milk placed in the machine and rapidly revolved, was quickly transformed, right before our eyes, to a whitish, vapor-like powder. This was the first test of the machine’s work that came directly under my observation. Unlike milk which has been reduced to powder by the application of heat, the fluid treated in this centrifugal-motion machine loses none of its nutritive value, and when this powder is mixed with the proper proportion of water, an hour or even a year later, it becomes real, pure milk again, and tastes exactly like the original. It contains, as chemical analysis shows, every one of the characteristics and properties of milk, and produces a thick rich cream–providing the original did–from which butter may be churned.”
“Well, what kind of a looking piece of mechanism is this wonderful machine,” inquired she, “and how is it operated ?”
“This machine is cylindrical in shape, and about six feet in diameter and twelve feet long,” I responded, “and resembles a huge wooden boiler stood on end. It is operated by electricity, and since no movement is visible when the motor is turned on, and the drying
process is astonishingly rapid, the mysterious transformation of any and all kinds of edibles before one’s eyes is almost uncanny.”
“Explain, if you please,” she insisted, “the process by which the transformation of food takes place in the machine.”
“Two days of the week before our departure for the moon,” said I in response, “Mr. Oliver B. McGuire, a representative of Mr. Krause, operated this machine at Alton, III., in preparing our stores for packing. During these two days this representative revealed to the scientific men of our party and to a representative of a large canning factory of Kansas City, Kans., the exact process by which the transformation takes place, and the machine was open to inspection by anybody and everybody, but I failed to take sufficient interest in it to understand the workings of it. Perhaps my lack of interest,” I concluded humorously, “was due largely to the fact that my mind was at that particular time engaged with bigger thoughts–so elated over the anticipated grand explorations of the heavens and of other worlds than ours, that the study of a food-drying machine appeared rather tame.”
“I would not have taken any chances like that,” she said emphatically, “for I would have been afraid we could not have changed that powdered-up stuff back to wholesome food again.”
“On the day Mr. McGuire finished the work of preparing our food for packing,” I explained, “he extended to all of us and to a few others an invitation to dine with him. He poured a quantity of milk into the machine and within a few minutes dried it and ground it to powder. He then repeated the process in succession with eggs, fruit, potatoes, meats, etc., and all in turn were completely and quickly dried and reduced to dust. The various powders were then gathered up and taken to a kitchen there in Alton to test the efficiency of the work done by Mr. Krause’s machine. With the guests still watching, amazed and almost incredulous, Mr. McGuire added water to the powdered milk in the right proportion. The powdered eggs he put into a large frying pan, added water and butter, and in a very short time had a tasty and attractive dish of scrambled eggs. The fruits he transformed into a sort of marmalade, and the potatoes, meats, etc., he served still in other ways. Then we all sat down to lunch. After the meal had been served, Capt. Ewald stated to a newspaper correspondent, in behalf of all who partook of this meal, that each and every dish prepared from the dried and powdered products tasted absolutely like the original foods and that no flavor had been lost. So you see we took no risk at least along this line.”
“What then did you do with all these dried and powdered products ?” she inquired.
“All our food supplies thus prepared–a quantity sufficient to last our exploring party for a period of twelve months–were then closely packed in strong, neat, paper boxes prepared especially for that purpose,” I said in reply, “and stored away in a dry place for safe keeping until we were ready to take our departure.”
“Did you really go on a trip to the moon, or are you merely joking?” inquired she earnestly.
“You had as well doubt the voyages of Sinbad the sailor, the travels of Baron Munchausen, the adventures of Gulliver, or the simple life of Robinson Crusoe,” I replied.
“Now I want you to leave off idle talk,” she urged, “and tell me the truth.”
“Please curb your curiosity on this point until I have finished the story,” said I, “and then I think that instead of doubting, you will only wish you had been one of the party who went on this wonderful expedition.”