6 INTRODUCTION. 



Man is not, however, satisfied with the balloon. 

 In the first place, he wishes to be perfectly independent 

 of a huge machine like a balloon, to be able to rise in 

 the air at will, and, as do the birds, to guide his own 

 course on his own wings. 



There is, perhaps, no one who does not feel an 

 innate yearning after such a capability. It even visits 

 us in our dreams; and there are very few who, in 

 dreamland, have not soared at will through the air, 

 serenely conscious that at last they had attained the 

 fruition of their long-delayed ambition. 



Will man ever succeed in this object ? I am in- 

 clined to think that he will, and that he will do so by 

 means which have escaped us from their very sim- 

 plicity. To fly through the air is really no more diffi- 

 cult a task than the practical annihilation of space and 

 time by the electric telegraph, of which Puck's forty 

 minutes' journey round the earth was but an imperfect 

 prophecy. 



I am inclined to think that the very fact that the 

 idea has for so many centuries existed in the mind of 

 man, and that so many attempts have been made to 

 convert the idea into a practical reality, is, if not a 

 proof, yet an indication, that such a result will be, 

 sooner or later, attained. 



There has been much verbal wit wasted on the 

 many failures, and much pictorial wit is displayed by 

 caricatures. These, however, rather tend to counteract 

 themselves ; for there is no great discovery which has 

 not been preceded by similar caricatures, whether of 

 pen, pencil, or both. For example, I have before me 

 a caricature of a steam- carriage, drawn but a very few 



