30 On Air Balloons 



of which is extremely ingenious, and shows how well all this 

 part of the business was understood in Italy some years before 

 Sir Isaac Newton sent in his first papers on the subject to the 

 Royal Society. There are twenty plates of his own engraving, 

 in outline only, except No. 3, on which he has given a feebly 

 shadowed representation of his favourite invention, the aerial 

 ship, with its four balloons, its mast, and sail ; but as the book 

 must be very scarce, it not having been noticed by either 

 Fontanini, or Apostolo Zeno, or found in the Floricel catalogue, 

 I may as well give you the title at length, which is as follows : — 



*' Prodromo — overo saggio di alcune inventioni nuove permesso 

 air arte Maestra — opera chez prepara H. P. Francesco Lana, 

 Breccian, Delia compagnia di Giesu, per mostrare li piii ri- 

 conditi principij della naturale Filosofia, riconosciuti con accu- 

 rata Teorica nelle piu segnalate inventioni, ed isperienze sin' 

 hora ritrovate da gli scrittori di questa materia, et altre nuove 

 deir autore medesimo. — Dedicate alia sacra Maestra Cesarea 

 del Imperatore Leopoldo I. — In Brescia, MDCLXX." 



The book is beautifully printed in small folio, and has a 

 preface of seventeen pages, on the subject of the state of the 

 sciences in his day, and the necessity of adopting the expe- 

 rimental mode in natural philosophy. Of course, like all the 

 writers of that period, he is verbose, but in many respects very 

 interesting, and, in general, very rational and ingenious. We 

 will now, however, lay aside all criticism, and relate what he 

 writes on the subject of his balloon vessel, which is the most 

 remarkable novelty in his book. 



After having, in his fifth chapter of mechanic inventions, to 

 cause birds to fly through the air, spoken of Architus's dove *, 

 Baptista Forio^^s flying dragon; the relation of Aulus Gellius 

 in his tenth book of the Aiijic Nights ; Regiomontanus^s famous 

 eagle, which flew to Charles V. on his entrance into Nurem- 

 burg ; Boetius's narration of certain copper birds, which not 

 only flew, but sang ; Glicas's relation of other similar birds, 

 which belonged to the Emperor Leo ; and Vamiano Strada's 

 account of those which Tariano made for Charles V., to amuse 

 him in his retirement, — he goes on to give the rationale of 

 such contrivances, by four different modes, all very plausible ; 

 and then, in his sixth chapter, the title of which is, How to 



