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FLYING. 
During the darker ages, when the possibility of 
ial transportation was ascribed to necromancers, 
Roger Bacon, a man of the most comprehensive genius, 
“pees of attaining it by wings attached to a ma- 
ine. In his singular work, De Mirabili potestate 
Ariis et Nature, he uses the following expressions. 
Possunt fieri instrumenta volandi, ut homo in me- 
dio instrumenti revolvens aliquod ingenium, per quod ala 
artificialiter composile aérem verberent ad modum avis 
volantis. That is, it is possible to make a flying ma- 
chine, so that a man sitting in the middle, can, by some 
expedient, produce a eae! | motion, which shall oc- 
casion the percussion of artificial wings on the air like 
the flight of a bird; and in another passage, he ob- 
seryes, “ that a flying machine has undoubtedly been 
made in our own time, not that I saw it, nor did I 
know any one who had done so, but I am acquainted 
with an intelligent person who has conceived such a 
contrivance.” Though the is not. void of ob- 
scurity, by combining it with the former, the author's 
meaning may be gained. Bacon lived in the thirteenth 
e .. Not far from, the same period, and in the 
su ing centuries, we are told of a certain monk, El- 
merus, who flew above a furlong from the top of a tower 
in Spain. Another flight was attempted from St Mark’s 
steeple in Venice, 5 gg gatdedpeacsd. and by 
means of a pair of wings, a person Dante of 
Perouse, was enabled ge but while amusing the 
city with his flight, he on the top of St Mary’s 
church and broke his thigh, The subject of aérial na- 
vigation received still attention in the seven- 
teenth century, as the works of Lana, Hook, and Wil- 
kins testify ; and contem with them, one Besnier, 
a locksmith of Sable in France, obtained considerable 
effect from the aid of four wings. In the only imper- 
fect description of them ed, they seem to have 
been four r ‘aces, one at the end of each 
of two rods over the shoulders of him who used 
them, and ior two connected by a cord to his 
ancles, The inventor did not pretend that he could 
rise fim fae earth cgsxa Roneett lang. in. the air, 
from inability to give his apparatus uisite power 
and rapidity ; but he progressively availed himself of 
its aid to leap from a window one storey high, next 
from the peuiy Pr oes a whereby 
he passed over the nei ing leaving an 
elevated position, he could he a river of pat i 
eadth, or.any similar obstacle,‘ His first pair of 
ings were purchased by M. Baladin of Guibre, who 
bm with success. This was recent i 
tury, Bartholomew Laurence de Guzman, a Portuguese, 
contrived ‘some fries, machine, partly formed with 
to us, Bat while one set. of 
been 
mechanics mae leah encouraged each other with 
echanical oppepttan.; . 
ing how _mueh ft dhreratied 
469 
earth without intermission; while a third only displays 
its wings occasionally, and is as if propelled by another 
agent when they open or close. Bishop Wilkins, that 
ingenious aie! ag whose works are too little studied 
at the present day, judiciously observes: ‘‘ We see a 
great difference betwixt the several quantities of such 
bodies as are commonly upheld by the air: not only 
little gnats and flies, but also the eagle and fowls of 
vaster magnitude.” Many insects, even, some in this 
country, exceed the diminutive size of the humming 
bird, which is but an eighth of an ounce in weight. It 
is almost constants on the wing, apparently sipping 
with its tender bill from the nectarium of the flowers. 
An enormous bird, the condor of South America, is 
calculated to be 8162 times heavier: “ What an ama-~ 
zing disproportion of weight!” exclaims a moder au- 
than ‘yet, by the same mechanical use of its wings, 
the condor can overcome the specific gravity of its 
body with as much ease as the little humming bird. 
But this is not all; we are informed that this immense 
bird possesses a power in its wings so far exceeding 
what is necessary for its own conyeyance through the 
air, that it can take up and fly away with a whole 
sheep in its talons, with as much ease as an eagle would 
carry off, in the same manner, a hare or a rabbit. This 
we may readily give credit to, from the known fact of 
our little kestril, and the a ge hawk, flying off with 
, which is nearly three times weight of 
: : 
either of these rapacious little birds.” A calculation is. 
next made of the combined weight of the condor and its 
rey, which amounts to 20,405 times the weight of the 
umming bird, to be borne through the air. Probably 
the ay nad would have found similar illustrations 
among the more rapacious, winged insects, whose wings 
are less adapted for it. But he with another 
comparison, to prove that the length of the wings of 
birds is not augmented in Peepousee to the increased 
weight of their bodies, whence he infers the possibility 
of cons ing a machine with which a man should be 
sm oy “The condor carries ten stone with 
wings of 12 feet expansion from tip to tip. The hum- 
ming bird carries one drachm with three inches ex- 
pansion; the common wren is three times as heavy as 
the humming bird, and has but one inch more of wing; 
a pigeon weighs 16 ounces, which is 256 times as 
heavy as it is, and has only ten times more expansion 
of wing; the goat-sucker is 40 times as heavy, and has 
seven times the length of wing. Therefore, as a man 
weighing ten stone, and a machine to bear him two, 
oy exceed the weight of the condor and its prey by 
one 
part, and as the wings of the condor are about. 
12 feet ; sup we make a pair of wings of silk, one 
fifth longer een they are, which will be poh fourteen 
and a half, I am thoroughly persuaded they will be 
found. amply sufficient, as they will far exceed the pro-. 
gressive increase of birds wings.” 
Authors, have even speculated on the fashion and’ 
substance of the wings, and in general have’ concluded 
that they should be us to those of birds. Bishop 
Wilkins, after observing if there be any such arti- 
ficial contrivances that can fly in the air, then it will 
clear} fallow, that it is possible also for a man to fly 
himself ; and he recommends the wings to be formed of 
feathers, like those employed by, Dedalus, or else of 
one mantenrapted substance like those of bats. ‘ But 
now because the arms.extended are but weak and easily 
wearied, therefore the motions by them are like to be 
but short and slow, answerable;.it may be, to the flight 
of such domestic fowl as are most conversant on the 
ground ; and therefore. much more would the arm of 
Flying. 
