FLYING AND FLYING-MACHINES. 321 



NOTES ON FLYING AND FLYING-MACHINES. 



IT would be difficult to say how many centuries have 

 elapsed since the first attempt was made to solve the 

 problem whether man can fly. Ages before the 

 4 philosopher's stone ' was ever sought for, or before the 

 problem of perpetual motion had attracted the atten- 

 tion of mechanists, men had attempted to wing their 

 way through the too unresisting air, by means of more 

 or less ingenious imitations of the pinions of birds or 

 insects. It has even been suggested (see Hatton 

 Tumor's Astra Castra\ that King David referred to 

 successful attempts of this sort, when he cried, ' that 

 I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be 

 at rest.' But without insisting on this opinion, 

 which indeed may be regarded as not wholly beyond 

 cavil, we have abundant evidence that in the earliest 

 ages, the same problem has been attacked, which the 

 Aeronautical Society of Great Britain took in hand but 

 a few years since, and which, still more recently, the 

 beleaguered Parisians sought earnestly, but in vain, to 

 solve. 



By the invention of the balloon the problem of 

 aerial floatation has been solved; but the problem 

 which has hitherto proved so intractable, is that of 

 aerial navigation or flight, whether by means of 

 flying-machines capable of supporting many persons at 

 once, or by means of contrivances enabling a man to 

 urge his way alone through the air. There can be 



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