Jules Verne

“ He learned for the first time that the machine created by the genius of this Robur, could traverse space, as it did the earth and the sea.
In truth, did not the possession of so complete and marvelous a machine justify the name of Master of the World, which Robur had taken to himself? Certain it is that the comfort and even the lives of the public must have been forever in danger from him; and that all methods of defence must have been feeble and ineffective. ”

“ I was on board the steamer Ottawa, in the Gulf of Mexico, headed for the port of New Orleans. This ship, while flying before the same terrific thunder-storm which destroyed the Terror, had encountered some wreckage, among whose fragments was entangled my helpless body. ”

“ While others have accomplished their work, with more or less success, by land and by sea, the American police hurl themselves in pursuit of criminals through the depths of lakes and oceans and even through the sky. ”