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To calculate aerial tides;

Though Volney undertook to do it

He wanted science to go through it.[33]

But we can let your worships know

Which way, next year the wind will blow,

And indicate without verbosity,

The measure of its mean velocity.

We gagg’d sage Darwin’s polar bear,

And would not let him “vomit air;”[34]

Thus spoil’d the Boreal ventilator,

And made a vacuum at the equator.

And then, by Doctor Priestley’s aid,

A vital atmosphere was made,

And stretch’d abroad, and found to answer,

From Capricorn quite on to Cancer.

We set an air balloon in motion

To float on th’ atmospheric ocean,

Annex’d a log, which never fail’d,

To give the distance which it sail’d:

And form’d a rudder, I assure it ye,

By which we steer’d with great security,

And could make good our destination

To any harbor in creation.

And we had nineteen pair of oars,

All mann’d with philosophic rowers,

Could therefore sail without a breeze,

Or stem a hurricane with ease.[35]

We now make public our intention

By aid of said superb invention,