ARTIFICIAL FLIGHT. 553 



experimenters ; it only remains to embody them all in a 

 single machine. 



In what direction is the solution of the problem to be 

 sought ? If any experimenter can so thoroughly master the 

 control of a machine sailing down-hill under gravity as to in- 

 crease the size of the machine and make it largfe enouoh to 

 carry a light motor, and if, further, this motor can be made of 

 sufficient horse-power, combined with lightness, to convert a 

 downward into a horizontal or upward motion, the problem 

 of flight will be solved. The first flights need not be long — 

 a hundred yards, rising, say, twenty or thirty feel above the 

 ground, will be sufficient ; all else will be simply a matter of 

 improving on the original model, and once success is assured 

 workers will not be wanting. 



Another promising direction for success lies in an 

 elaborate and exhaustive investigation of balance and sta- 

 bility, such as would allow of the safe use of motor-driven 

 machines too large to be controlled by mere athletic 

 agility. This might partially be acquired by experiments 

 with models, gradually increasing in size till they were 

 capable of carrying a man and motor. But if the future 

 development of artificial flight is not to continue a repetition 

 of the chapter of accidents by which naval architects gained 

 their theoretical knowledge, there is abundant work for 

 mathematicians in reducing the conditions of stability oi 

 aerial machines to a matter of pure calculation. One thing 

 is certain, till this is done designs of large air-ships for the 

 wholesale transport of passengers, officers and cargo are 

 not of the slightest value ; their designers would do better 

 to study mathematics and help in the heavy work of calcu- 

 lation still requiring to be done. 



Very different from the air-ship is the fiyiug-macliine 

 by which it is sought to commence with small feats and 

 gradually work up to big ones, and considering the number 

 of workers at present in the field, and the scientific and 

 systematic way in which they are studying the difficulties 

 of their problem, we may yet hope that the realisation of 

 artificial flight will take its rank among the scientific 

 triumphs of the Victorian Reign. 



G. H. Bryan. 



