[ 27] 
It. On Aérial Navigation. By Sir Geoncr Cavey, Bart. 
To Mr. Tilloch. 
Sir, — Sixce my last paper on Aérial Navigation, several 
scattered observations have been made upon this subject in your 
Magazine ; and although it has not met with all the encourage- 
ment it deserves, yet it has received as much notice as can rea- 
sonably be expected, when it is considered that it invites its sup- 
porters to a subscription, during an unparalleled period of public 
pecuniary privation. I am_ glad to find that a gentleman of di- 
stinguished literary and scientific reputation has stated to you 
his intention of subscribing fifty pounds towards any experiments 
on this subject, that may be conducted by men of science; al- 
luding, I conceive, to the committee proposed in one of my 
papers. Mr. Evans has likewise signified his intention of sub- 
scribing, in conjunction with Mr. Lovell Edgeworth* and myself. 
It therefore becomes necessary to publish the present amount of 
the subscriptions, which I propose, subject to the permission of 
these two gentlemen, may be done in your Magazine for July; by 
which time I hope a few more names may be added, and a fund 
for experiments on the improvement of balloons be commenced, 
which will in time enable the capabilities of this interesting in- 
vention to be properly investigated and ascertained, under the 
inspection of a committee of scientific persons, acting with the 
advice of the best professional engineers in the country. Surely, 
when it is considered that this leading discovery of suspending 
heavy bodies in the air by balloons is but recent in our age ; and 
that the cumbrous and expensive nature of their structure has 
placed the proper scale of experiments far beyond the expense 
that individuals chouse to appropriate to such purposes,—it can- 
not be deemed absurd, or even unworthy a sense of national 
pride, by a combined effort of intelligence and contribution, to 
rescue this noble invention from for ever remaining a gaudy 
bubble in the hands of exhibition-makers. All that I ask of 
men of information upon matters of this nature is, to combine, 
and to try such rational experiments, as would show by degrees 
* Sir George will have learnt by this time that the gentleman whom he 
here names is now no more. He was the gentleman who had agreed to sub- 
scribe tifty pounds.—Enpir. 
+ I stated jast year to Mr. Tilloch the amount of my subscription, as 
the orizinal promoter, under certain conditions: for the present I shall say 
50 pounds; but [ by no means wish gentlemen disposed to forward experi- 
ments on this subject to subscribe upon a high scale, as a greater amount 
may probably be obtaived in subscriptions of from one to ten ns: 
10oWw 
