1829.J Ajairs in General. 54? 



must think of the fabric just as every other man of taste thinks of it. If 

 he retains his love of fresh air, he must contemplate with the proper 

 feelings the pleasure of inhaling the perpetual smoke of Air. Elliot's 

 brewery, and sitting over the general sewer of Westminster. The pond 

 which in front of the palace rivals the purity of Fleet-ditch, and the 

 pond which in its rear gathers the mists and miasmata of the most 

 dingy district of the metropolis, may be its charms to royalty — but, like 

 Lord Eldon, we doubt. 



The public attention has been powerfully called to the capabilities of 

 the steam-carriage, by the offer of the Liverpool Rail-road Company of 

 a premium of 500/. for the most complete machine. After a trial of a 

 week, the prize seems to have fallen to a machine by IMessrs. Stephenson, 

 which swept thirteen tons weight after it, at the tremendous speed of 

 fourteen miles an hour on the railway ; and when relieved from its 

 burthen, and with only its own weight, yet even that, nearly four tons, 

 flew, for we have no right to use any other term, at the rate of 32 miles 

 an hour ! 



If such be the powers of steam in this instance, what limit can there 

 be to them, when we shall be enabled to reduce the fuel into a smaller 

 compass, and lighten the machinery ! By furnishing it with vanes instead 

 of wheels, we might send it on an excursion into the air. The idea is 

 scarcely extravagant. The motion of 32 miles in an hour is nearly 

 equal to the ordinary flight of a pigeon, a very strong flier; and when 

 we recollect that vanes of almost any size could be applied to the machine, 

 and certainly of a size much exceeding the proportion of a pigeon's 

 wing to its body, and that the power of the steam to whirl them round 

 is all but unlimited, we are entitled to speculate upon some very 

 extraordinai-y results of the attempt. To controul the air as we have 

 already controlled the sea and the land, but two things can be necessary 

 ■ — buoyancy and the power of direction. The buoyancy we have already 

 attained to a sufficient degree, through the balloon, though it is still an 

 awkward and insecure machine. Yet again we must recollect that a 

 great portion of its insecurity arises from our wanting the power of 

 direction. One of the chief hazards of the balloon results from its being 

 suffered to rise so high that a slight additional height would burst it. 

 The only mode of avoiding this being the letting out of the gas, which 

 of course gradually disqualifies the balloon for flight. But if we pos- 

 sessed the power of guiding the balloon, we might keep it within any 

 elevation we pleased, might steer it at a thousand fathoms from the 

 surface, descend when and where we pleased, and naove in any current 

 of wind that we desired, or in a calm, use the vanes. 



We should wish to see it ascertained by experiment, what rapidity 

 of vanes revolving in a circle would be necessary to raise a body from 

 the ground, in other words, to fly ? We have heard it calculated, that 

 a rapidity equal to fifteen miles an hour would accomplish this. The 

 true difficulty, and perhaps the only one that remains, is to make the 

 steam macliinery of materials that will not be too heavy for the ascent. A 

 combination of small balloons would probably be more manageable than 

 a single balloon of the present enormous size. The cost of the experi- 

 ments would in any instance put it beyond a private purse. But we 

 have some opulent scientific bodies, and a subscription from their mem- 

 bers might be easily obtained, if the project exhibited any evidence of irn- 



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