WELLNER'S SAIL -WHEEL FLYING MACHINE. 633 



rotations per minute. The entire weight of this flying machine 

 and crew is eight thousand pounds and its lifting power ten thou- 

 sand. Unfortunately, the surplus power of two thousand pounds 

 during the experiment lifted the machine off the rails on which it 

 was running, and broke the rear axletrees that were holding it 

 down, thus wrecking the apparatus. The prominent English 

 physicists. Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, etc., speak of Maxim's 

 air-ship with the greatest enthusiasm ; they expect him actually 

 to solve the problem in a near future. The German scientists, 

 however, at the Sixty-sixth Congress of German Naturalists, 

 which was held in Vienna in September, stated that while Max- 

 im's experiment has certainly brought the problem nearer its 

 solution, it has cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and 

 left the question of steering the air-ship, which is at present the 

 greatest impediment to ultimate success, altogether unimproved. 

 They expressed their hope of seeing the real invention made by a 

 German, after all, although their nation does not command pecu- 

 niary means which permit of such costly experimenting as that 

 done by Mr. Maxim, whose apparatus, they say, is in its main 

 traits merely the application of Mr. Kress the German in- 

 ventor's model, executed in colossal dimensions. Mr. Kress dem- 

 onstrated before the assembly the capacities of his model, which 

 he constructed some years ago, and was loudly applauded as his 

 machine rose with great speed and landed at the appointed place 

 on one of the galleries. Prof. Ludwig Boltzmann, of the Vienna 

 University, gave a general survey of the latest inventions. He 

 considered as a very important step the work done by the en- 

 gineer, Mr. Otto Lilienthal, in Berlin. This gentleman, while 

 using a flying machine of the smallest possible dimensions, has 

 made great progress in the art of steering it, partly by the appli- 

 cation of a rudder that takes the place of a bird's tail, partly by 

 well- calculated motion of his own body and feet. An extensive 

 practice is likely to produce absolute mastery of this part of the 

 problem. " The aeronaut," said Prof. Maxim in his report before 

 the British Association, " has to excel not as an expert in technique 

 only, but also as an acrobat." This implies the same conception 

 of the task to which Prof. Boltzmann gave utterance when speak- 

 ing of Mr. Lilienthal's work and its prospects. He added that Mr. 

 Kress has recently constructed an apparatus for steering which is 

 based on new principles and gives fair promise of good results. 



Montenegro enjoys a paternal government. Mr, "W. H. Oozens-Hardy tells of 

 an officer who, when asked why he had put five men in prison, replied that they 

 had seen after dark a figure dressed in white, sitting on a grave. Ghost stories, 

 he said, were bad for public morals. 



VOL. XLVI. 4Y 



