512 Rt Hon. Sir John H. A. Macdonald [March 28, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 28, 1919. 



General E. H. Hills, C.M.G. D.Sc. F.R.S., 

 Secretary and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Rt. Hox. Sir John H. A. Macdonald, G.C.B. LL.D. 

 F.R.S. M.LE.E. 



The Air Road. 



[Abstract.] 



The use of the Air as a Road occupied many minds in past times. 

 Both the ideas of traveHin^^ by the aid of light gases, and by the use 

 of force in imitation of birds, were matters of research as far back as 

 the Christian era. Time will not permit that the history of the many 

 devices used be given, but reference may be made to a few. Roger 

 Bacon, in the thirteenth century, wrote of one who adumbrated a 

 balloon of very thin copper, to be filled with — to use his own words — 

 " ethereal air or liquid fire." In the seventeenth century, Francesco 

 Lana proposed to attach four such thin globes of copper to a boat, 

 and these, having been exhausted of air, he thought would ascend. 

 He forgot that as the air had been taken out of the globes they would 

 be " crushed-in " by external atmospheric pressure, and that there 

 would be no buoyancy. 



It was left to the Montgolfiers in the eighteenth century to pro- 

 duce the first balloon by using air made light by lieating. This was 

 soon followed by the invention of the gas balloon, which for long 

 was the only means of aerial ascent. Its only practical use was for 

 military observations. Such balloons were used at the battles of 

 Maubanji and Fleurus, and by Napoleon in his Egyptian Expedition. 

 These balloons, however, were held to the ground by anchored cables ; 

 the defect of the balloon was that it could not be controlled. 



There is no time to speak of the many who thus struggled on 

 against learned discouragement. But two sets of investigators call 

 for special notice, as by their indomitable patience and inventive 

 power, they overcame the chief difficulties that strewed the path 

 towards success. They set themselves to attain that which Leonardo 

 da Vinci had enforced long ago, but which had been too much over- 

 looked, perceiving that the first thing essential to safe flight was a 

 knowledge of how the flying-machine could be controlled and its 

 balance maintained, or if lost, recovered. At the risk — a great one I 

 confess — of being considered unpatriotic by giving praise to any 



