Mrial Navigation. 15 



Aet. II.— On Serial Navigation; by H. Strait. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



Dear Sir — Having spent a considerable portion of my time, for 

 two years and a half past, in studying and investigating the properties 

 of the air, for the purpose of determining the practicability and utility 

 of aerial navigation ; 1 have so far succeeded in my inquiries as to 

 be induced to forward you the result, wishing that you may lay it 

 before the public in the next number of the American Journal of 

 Science and Arts. The reasons why 1 wish to lay my researches 

 thus prematurely before the public, are, that I have made experi- 

 ments on my plan to a considerable extent j even enough to satisfy 

 myself of its success ; but that I am not now able, and, perhaps, 

 shall not be before next spring, for want of funds, to construct a ma- 

 chine of a sufficient size to determine its practical utility, which will 

 probably cost from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars ; 

 and that I have written a number of letters, to different places, de- 

 scriptive of ray plan and its principles, some of which are unanswer- 

 ed and have likewise made communications personally to individuals 

 with whom I was very partially acquainted. I will now give a plain 

 and concise description of my plan and its principles, hoping you will 

 lay it before the public, and thus prevent any one from gaining an 

 unjust precedence, or taking undue advantages of my present cir- 

 cumstances in the prosecution of this enterprise, with which I feel 

 deeply interested. In so doing you will confer a favor on me, and 

 perhaps, in time on the best interests of literature and science. 



I shall now proceed to develope the true principles of aerial nav- 

 igation as founded in reason and the established laws of nature, and 

 describe a plan which I discovered in the autumn of eighteen hun- 

 dred and thirty, which seems every way applicable to the purpose. 

 Its resistance to progression will be very small ; its principles are ca- 

 pable of being employed with equal facility on a small or large con- 

 struction, according to the weight required to be conveyed. It is 

 calculated to have the combined assistance of inflammable or rarefied 

 air, and the percussion of wings. The inflammable or rarefied air is 

 to supply the principal means of ascent or ascensive power, and this 

 power is to be governed and varied at pleasure by the percussion of 

 wings. The wings are to be so constructed and hung as to be moved 

 with the greatest facility, whatever be their size, shape and weight. 



