46 NOTES ON FLYING-MACHINES. 
In making experiments with flying-machines on a large scale, it 
is well we should understand that the generation of steeple-jump- 
ers has passed away, and that any one at the stage our knowledge 
starting must be, as suggested somewhere in Mr. Proctor’s writings, 
from a light carriage on a level or falling gradient. If the machine 
is correctly Son rene it will leave the carriage at the proper 
moment ; if anything is wrong, no accident can ~ happen to the 
experiment er. 
The carriage will need three wheels on castors, with one upright 
bar rove loosely through the machine, so that all mancuvres may 
be practised without allowing it to rise higher than the top of the 
bar, and with perfect safety to both the machine and the man. 
The motive power most suitable for flying-machines is air com- 
pressed into spherical or spindled-shaped steel vessels, driving a 
direct-acting single-cylinder — engine. (Diagram III. ) 
t is perhaps premature to spe alighting before we ascend 
at all; but we may take a lesson loans birds, and observe how they 
turn round and face the wind when coming to the ground, in the 
same ad that a yacht picks up her moorings. 
e every-day employment of flying-machines as means of 
transit ecu be brought much nearer in point of time if our boys 
would make and use these models as toys; they require little more 
skill in construction than an ordinary kite, and young brains are 
so much readier to perceive and grasp an improvement than those 
that have already been moulded and set in a particular groove. 
I will now wind up the machines and let them speak for them- 
selves, and if they do not all break in winding (a not unusual 
acci dent), they will perhaps carry conviction to some mechani 
minds that by means of a ridiculously simple piece of mechanism 
rapid artificial flight is possible. 
: one of them threatens to strike any gentleman present, 
would he kindly hold up his hands—so—this will stop the flight, 
and the machine will fall harmlessly to the ground, and will pro- 
sna escape unbroken : if you attempt to hold it, it is sure to be 
aged. * 
UW 
pressed air is to trochoid flat wings, 
