After that all would depend on the liquid hydrogen. The remarkable
qualities of this unique product were to be tested for the first
time in the history of ballooning. When the gas in the bag had
diminished by leakage through the valves and elsewhere so that it
was no longer sufficient to carry the car, the liquid hydrogen was
to be turned into gas which was to take the place of that lost. Ned
had left Washington with sixteen cubic feet of the liquid in eight
delicate Dewar bulbs, or casks. He figured that one-quarter of it
would be lost by evaporation, leaving twelve cubic feet. This seems
a small supply until one understands that the hydrogen increases in
volume 880 times as it returns into gas from the liquid form. The
twelve cubic feet of liquid, therefore, would give them a little
over ten thousand cubic feet of new gas. And this, with the loss of
ballast and provisions in three or four days, Ned calculated, would
give the balloon a new life of a day or so.
Therefore, the secret plan was a direct journey to Elmer's camp, a
flight of eighty-five miles, which would bring the Cibola near to
the foot of the mountains of mystery.
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