AERIAL LOCOMOTION 437 



theorists demonstrated mathematically that this speed, and even higher, 

 was attainable by appliances then known. Now apparently the inven- 

 tors, taking a lesson from Santos Dumont, have caught up with the 

 computers, and are producing the high speed balloons. On the third 

 of this month, an eye witness told me that he saw Count von Zeppelin's 

 air-ship fly about Lake Constance at a speed of twenty -eight miles an 

 hour, independently of the wind, and that she obeyed her rudder as 

 perfectly as a boat on the water. It is reported that the inventor has 

 deduced from these experiments that a larger vessel will operate still 

 more effectively, that an air-ship of this type can be made to carry fifty 

 passengers at a speed of more than thirty miles an hour. Count von 

 Zeppelin writes that his present balloon, which is 410 feet long and 38 

 feet in diameter, has attained a speed of 33.5 miles an hour, and is 

 able to go 1,860 miles through the air at a speed of 31 miles an hour, 

 or 3,000 miles at a speed of 25 miles an hour, without stopping for sup- 

 plies. To match this achievement in Germany, let me add that the 

 French Government has just accepted the second Lebaudy motor- 

 balloon, and has ordered one more like it, thus adding three modern 

 air-ships to her aerial equipment. Such facts may give us at least a 

 little faith in aerial locomotion of the second kind. 



The goal of the gliding and soaring machines is to travel through 

 the air on motionless wings, without the aid of gas or motive power, 

 by the sole aid of wind and gravitation ; not only to glide downward, 

 but also to soar up to the clouds, and sweep over vast territories, as do 

 the condor and the albatross. To some people this seems absurd ; but 

 there are the vultures and the gulls performing the impossible every 

 day. Humboldt assures us that the condor can soar from the Pacific 

 to the heights of Cotopaxi and Aconcagua without wing-beat. Here 

 is a splendid field of research which thus far has remained practically 

 unexplored. 



Unfortunately, I can not quote an instance of real soaring by man ; 

 that is to say, gliding to an indefinite height and distance, without the 

 use of motive power. Still, from the mechanical nature of the per- 

 formance, I believe it is feasible. Dr. Langley was so convinced of 

 the possibility of this kind of flight that he looked forward to the time 

 when men would soar over vast distances, and possibly circumnavi- 

 gate the globe without the expenditure of motive power, save in those 

 regions of the atmosphere where there might be an extended calm or 

 downward trend of the wind. 



Two years ago the Wright brothers compared their power of aerial 

 gliding with that of a vulture in North Carolina, among the Kill-Devil 



