t was
I to do? I was now standing in front of the great Mosque at
Constantinople almost frantic with perplexity; some one approached
and handed me a printed announcement. I read it! It sent an
inexpressible thrill through me. I immediately took a steamer

[Illustration: Large Steam-Powered Paddle-Boat.]

for Melbourne, landed there, jumped into a cab, went straight to
Cole's Book

[Illustration: Carriage drawn by One Horse.]

Arcade, and saw a drawing of the very article I had ransacked the
world over to obtain, and what do you think it was? It was a FLYING
MACHINE! I wanted a flying machine, Mr. Cole informed me that he had
not got his machine to fly yet, and that in all the world a machine
was not yet invented that would fly, but that, through the active and
progressive ingenuity of the human intellect, such a machine was
certain to be invented in the future, and as an earnest of his strong
conviction he handed me a document, which ran as follows:--

October 31st. 1882

I, the undersigned, firmly believe that as man has already made
machines to run over the land and float over the water faster than
the swiftest animal, so shortly he will make machines to fly
through the air as fast, and finally faster, than the swiftest
birds do now. And I hereby offer a bonus of L1,000 to any person
who shall (in consequence of said bonus) within the next two years
invent a flying machine, to go by Electrical, Chemical, Mechanical,
or any other means, except by gas, a distance of 100 miles, and
shall come and stop in front of the Book Arcade, Bourke Street,
Melbourne, Australia, as easily and as safely as a carriage stops
there now.

--E. W. Cole

[Illustration: Cole's Flying Machine.]

Cole's Flying Machine

A workable flying machine would be the grandest invention of the age.
My offer may not bring it about, but suppose a shilling subscription
was made throughout the civilised world; say twenty million people
gave 1/- each. That would be one million pounds, and offer that as a
bonus for a useful flying machine, that bonus, I am sure, would
produce the article. The shillings would be well spent, and it would
immortalise the twenty million people who put their names down.

[Page 114--Miss Cole's Aerial Flight in a Flying Machine]

[Illustration: The Federation Of The Whole World Is Fast Coming.]

My prophecy with regard to flying machines, as may well be seen by
the original statement herewi