Ahead of it, metal plates stretched away like rails, running toward the lip of the Palisades.

Its quadruple floats, each the size of a tugboat and each capable of being exhausted of air, constituted a potential lifting-force of enclosed vacuums that very largely offset the weight of the mechanism.

It was still a heavier-than-air machine, but the balance could be made nearly perfect.

And the six helicopters, whose cylindrical, turbine-like drums gleamed with metallic glitters--three on each side along the fuselage--could at will produce an absolutely static condition of lift or even make the plane hover and soar quite vertically.
There the monster lay, outstretching its enormous sextuple wings, each wing with an area of 376 by 82.5 feet.

The non-inflammable celluloid surfaces shone white as fresh-cut ivory, clean, smooth, unbreakable.
The plane reminded one of some Brobdingnagian dragon-fly, resting for flight, shimmering with power as it poised for one swift leap aloft into the night.
Bohannan, still a bit confused, noted the absence of any exhaust from the speeding engines.