14 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 523. 



St. Louis; and especially was the failure 

 duo to the most unfortunate and unwar- 

 ranted charge which a police officer made 

 in response to a call for a report in regard 

 to the mutilation of ' Santos-Dumont No. 7. ' 

 Being unable to get any clue to the guilty 

 wretch (who had plenty of time to slip in 

 and slash the gathered silk in hundreds of 

 places while the guard sipped his coffee 

 in a booth a few hundred yards away), 

 and feeling doubtless that he must give 

 some explanation, he actually stated that 

 in his opinion the injury was inflicted 

 either by Santos-Dumont himself or by 

 some one of his men. No more in.jiirious, 

 unwarranted or insensate charge could 

 have been made, and no person who was in 

 any way acquainted with Santos Dumont 

 could have made it ; and yet that charge 

 became current in the newspapers and was 

 half believed by a gi-eat many very re- 

 spectable people far and wide. Doubtless 

 the currency of that charge did much to 

 discourage and repel Saiitos Dumont from 

 our shores. That he should have received 

 such treatment in America was surprising 

 and greatly to be regretted. It went far 

 to give us a bad reputation in. European 

 circles. We are credited with hostility 

 towards European inventors and experi- 

 menters. I trust Mr. Santos Dumont may 

 eventually learn that Americans as a rule 

 are fair-minded, generous and friendly 

 towards all experimenters in every field. 

 I trust he may learn that not one, so far 

 as I know, of the gentlemen who were asso- 

 ciated with him during his two visits to 

 St. Louis sympathizes in any way, or to 

 any extent, with the insinuations thrown 

 out against him by the officer above i-e- 

 ferred to. 



Prom Ibis digression I now turn to the 

 sul).ject in hand, namely, the possibility of 

 progress in the art of aerial navigation. 

 Regarding progress in aerial navigation as 

 entirely possible, I notice that it depends 



upon the solution of many problems, and 

 no successful air-ship can reasonably be 

 expected to appear until these problems are 

 solved. 



There are two lines of attack, which, 

 while differing in one respect, have very 

 much in common. Investigators are nat- 

 urally divided into two classes: One seek- 

 ing to devise methods for navigating the 

 air as birds do, which gain support and 

 propulsion solely from mechanical and 

 muscular energy ; and the other relying 

 for support, more or less, upon the buoy- 

 ancy of hydrogen gas, while securing pro- 

 pulsion by means of propellers. All are 

 clearly interested in motors, whether the 

 air-ship moves with or without the sup- 

 port of a bag of hydrogen. All are con- 

 cerned with methods of management, and 

 with the adoption of means for directing 

 the movements of an air ship throi;gh the 

 air. 



If a gas bag is to be iised, it is evident 

 that the shape of the bag which involves 

 the least amount of resistance is of first 

 importance, and if that bag is to be a 

 diminishing quantity, the ship must secure 

 support from the use of aeroplanes or 

 curved siirfaces as the craft is driven 

 rapidly forward. It is evident that the 

 character of supporting surfaces and their 

 distribution are matters of first importance 

 in all cases. The number of preliminary 

 lemmas which nnist be solved before the 

 main proposition is reached is readily seen. 

 The recent aeronautical congress concerned 

 itself wholly with discussions and reports 

 of experiments upon these preliminary 

 matters, and I can truthfully say that ex- 

 cellent work was done. 



I spoke of the gas bag as being a di- 

 minishing quantity. I wish to add a few 

 words to make my meaning clear. '^Tien 

 it was first proposed to propel an ocean 

 ship by means of mechanical power, it was 

 assumed as a matter of course that the 



