BOOMERANGS. 



if we watch the three first objects, the inanimate 

 flat things, as they fall from a sufficient height, 

 we observe that instead of gliding steadily 

 and smoothly downwards, with the same thin 

 edge always in front, they come down with 

 many varieties of irregular movements. Of 

 the falling leaves in autumn many will 

 keep rolling over in the same direction 

 during the whole of their fall. Others will 

 have a swinging movement, dipping down, 

 across, and up, with one edge first, and then 

 with the opposite edge in front dipping down, 

 across, and up, in the opposite direction, but 

 a little lower. Others, again, have a twirling 

 motion, sometimes keeping almost horizontal, 

 at other times with one end lower than the 

 other, forming a funnel-shaped or conical curve 

 by the spin. 



None of these would be a suitable move- 

 ment for a flat weapon to tend towards assuming 

 after it had left the guidance of the hand. If 

 it could maintain, as a bird's wing does, some- 

 thing like a horizontal position, it might, 

 like a bird, float with a steady movement 

 through the air, and, having the advantage 

 of the air's support to delay its fall, could 

 travel much further with the same starting 

 impetus. 



To avoid the irregular movements and 

 turning over, to keep the thin edge always 

 presented in the direction of the forward 



E 49 



