AERONAUTICS. 



The subject of artificial flight, notwithstanding the large 

 share of attention bestowed upon it, has been particularly 

 barren of results. This is the more to be regretted, as the 

 interest which has been taken in it from early Greek and 

 Roman times has been universal. The unsatisfactory state of 

 the question is to be traced to a variety of causes, the most 

 prominent of which are — 



1st, The extreme difficulty of the problem. 



2d, The incapacity or theoretical tendencies of those who 

 have devoted themselves to its elucidation. 



3d, The great rapidity with which wings, especially insect 

 wings, are made to vibrate, and the difficulty experienced in 

 analysing their movements. 



Ath, The great weight of all flying things when compared 

 with a corresponding volume of air. 



6th, The discovery of the balloon, which has retarded the 

 science of aerostation, by misleading men's minds and causing 

 thera to look for a solution of the problem by the aid of a 

 machine lighter than the air, and which has no analogue in 

 nature. 



Flight has been unusually unfortunate in its votaries. It 

 has been cultivated, on the one hand, by profound thinkers, 

 especially mathematicians, who have worked out innumer- 

 able theorems, but have never submitted them to the test of 

 experiment ; and on the other, by uneducated charlatans who, 

 despising the abstractions of science, have made the most ridi- 

 culous attempts at a practical solution of the problem. 



Flight, as the matter stands at present, may be divided 

 into two principal varieties which represent two great sects 

 or schools — 



