On Aérial Navigation. 83 
obtaining a proper fund;—and secondly, that a committee be 
appointed by the subscribers for the purpose of carrying such 
experiments as may appear eligible into effect.. To such a com- 
mittee I should be glad to submit the propriety of making the 
following experiment, which would be capable of trying all the 
expedients hitherto proposed for steering balloons. The prin- 
ciple proposed by Mr. Evans is only applicable, at present, to 
fire-balloons ; and as these are the cheapest, and upon a large 
seale with proper precautions may be made safe with respett to 
fire, I propose that the experiments be made upon the Mont- 
golfier balloon. The scale I prepose to adopt, though as small 
as is compatible with the object in view, will appear to any one 
who has not calculated the proportions required for the success 
of the experiment, of stupendous magnitude.—Amazement would 
have been the consequence of presenting to the imagination of 
an ancient Briton the idea of a British hundred-gun ship, when 
only contemplating the principles of navigation exhibited in his 
humble coracle covered with a skin. From the truck of the 
flag-staff to the extreme of the bowsprit, a vessel of this sort 
will measure about 90 yards; and it is a wonderful effort of hu- 
man ingenuity arising from the gradually accumulating know- 
ledge of ages:—but the long boat of aérial navigation com- 
mences about the bulk where the man-of-war of common navi- 
gation has reached its full growth; and what may be the vessels, 
I hopie not men of war, of this sort which a thousand years of 
human invention may bring to light, I am at a loss to contem- 
plate. 
= S3 SS 
SGI OE 
Se ae g 
ws. 
3% 
ais ee xy 
Let ABC represent the plan, side and end elevation of a 
balloon or aérial vessel, made of woollen cloth, and kept to its 
F2 shape 
