NAVIGATING THE AIR 



great that they did not rally from it for something like a 

 quarter of a century. In 1809, however, a Viennese 

 watchmaker named Degen revived interest in attempts 

 at mechanical flight by inventing a flying-machine which 

 consisted essentially of two parachutes. These were 

 worked by hand, and the inventor was said to have been 

 able to rise to a height of over fifty feet from the ground 

 "moving in any desired direction." 



These claims were not borne out in fact, but they 

 stimulated an interest in the possibilities of mechanical 

 flight, and in the parachute, which had never come into 

 popular favor despite its successful use by the inventor, 

 Gamerin. Hopes were again entertained that a modi- 

 fication of this device might be utilized in solving the 

 problem of aerial flight, and in 1837 an aeronaut, Henry 

 Cocking, invented a new type in which he proposed to 

 descend from a balloon. The parachute of Gamerin, 

 as we know, had been constructed like a huge umbrella, 

 whereas Cocking's parachute had the general appear- 

 ance of an umbrella held upside down. An unusual 

 interest was aroused in the prospective experiment from 

 the fact that a great majority of scientists did not con- 

 sider that this parachute was constructed on correct 

 scientific principles, and predicted that the aeronaut 

 would be killed when he attempted to use it. Before 

 the day of the trial arrived numerous articles had been 

 published, presenting arguments for and against Cock- 

 ing's device, and on the very day itself one of the news- 

 papers contained a long article by a leading authority 

 on aerostatics, reviewing the numerous reasons why the 

 attempt would surely prove a failure. 



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