FLYING-MACHINES. ETC. 



453 



ceived the imposture at once, and attacked the young ferret so savage- 

 ly that she broke two of its legs before I could remove it. To have 

 made this experiment parallel with the other, however, the two mothers 

 ought to have littered on the same day. In this case the result would 

 probably have been different ; for I have heard that under such cir- 

 cumstances even such an intelligent animal as a bitch may be deceived 

 into rearing a cat, and vice versa. Nature. 



-- 



FLYING-MACHINES AND PENAUD'S ARTIFICIAL BIRD.' 



translated from the jouknal de physique, 



By ALFEED M. MAYEK, 

 peofessor in the stevens institute of technologt. 



'^VyiTMEROUS attempts have been made at different times to con- 

 -i-^ struct a machine capable of propelling itself through the air. 

 All kinds of aerial propellers have in turn been tried ; such as 

 screws, beating wangs, umbrellas which open and shut during their 

 reciprocating motion, inclined planes, aerial wheels. But though 

 many of these projects called forth considerable inventive ability, yet, 

 until quite recently, the hdicopteron (from k'kiKoc^^ any thing spiral or 

 twisted, and nrepov, a wing that is, a machine furnished with an 

 aerial screw-propeller) was the only type of machine which had suc- 

 ceeded in raising itself in flight. Several of these helicopterons have 

 been constructed since 1784, at which date Bienvenu made the first 

 that flew. The best known and the most perfect was that which 

 Ponton d'Aniecourt constructed in 1864, and which raised itself for 

 a moment by a sudden motion to a height of two and a half metres. 

 It was formed of two superposed right and left handed screws, put in 

 motion by a watch-spring. All other methods of artificial flight, in- 

 cluding those of propellers with wings beating the air like those of a 

 bird, remained ineffective, and were the subjects of conflicting hy- 

 potheses as to the nature of flight. 



In beginning our studies, we have thought that the best means of 

 getting rid of the multiplicity of hypotheses and of conflicting opinions 

 would be to divide the flying-machines that have been invented into 

 a small number of general types ; then to reduce each of these types 

 to its essential elements, and finally to design a flj'ing-machine of each 

 of these simplified types possessing all the really essential parts, and 

 easy to construct. 



Leaving out of consideration the inventions which are evi- 

 dently defective, we have thought it possible to divide the majoi'ity 



' The Academy of Sciences of Paris, at its meeting in June, 1875, awarded to M. 

 Penaud a prize for the discoveries and inventions described in this article. 



