1885.] The Problem of the Soaring Bird. 1165 
glass, several bodies, of six pounds weight each, had remained 
stationary in free air about thirty feet above the water, absolutely 
without any visible support. They had remained in that condition 
many hours, facing a breeze of velocity varying from five to 
twenty-five miles per hour. In the rear was located my device 
for determining horizontality of wind, and it was level the entire 
day. Most people would be less surprised at a body resting in 
this way in calm air than in wind. They would hold each to be 
simply impossible, but more mysterious that both gravity and air- 
resistance should be ignored, than simply gravity. So to deter- 
mine how much force it would take to keep six pounds in air all 
the time unsupported, I provided a billet of wood of that weight, 
well rounded, and proceeded to throw it up in still air, and the 
moment it came down, catch and return it. The work was hon- 
estly done; the moment it descended it was tossed back with all 
the activity I was capable of commanding. I prefer that each 
one should try this for themselves, and will only say that an hour 
of such work was far, very far, beyond my muscular capacity. 
These birds were often watched. from a perch in some lonely 
tree at the water line. That I could recline at ease in the fragrant 
foliage of the pine was easily accounted for; the trunk of the 
sturdy tree antagonized the gravitating force of my body, and I 
could rest at peace. But what held up the birds? Had gravity 
ceased to act upon them? Had they no resistance to offer to 
that sea-born breeze ? 
After about four years of this kind of work accident favored me. 
A summer whirlwind, on a calm morning, issued from among the 
lemon trees straggling over the point a few hundred yards below, 
and clutching an armful of dead leaves made for the bay obliquely 
in front of my station in the tree. A pair of buzzards were return- 
ing from the outer beach on fixed wings, and as luck would have 
it, were intercepted by the cyclone, and in five seconds were 
ducked in the waters of the bay. I hope they possessed a sense 
of humor, but they seemed to blame me for the mishap. A 
more thoroughly laughable episode I never witnessed, and from 
the bottom of my heart forgave the creatures for their seeming 
injustice. They abandoned that part of the coast -but left their 
secret behind them. 
For the purposes of this paper enough has now been said as to 
the facts exhibited, It is very evident that a state of things has 
