2 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
forces, gravity and atmospheric resistance, are brought into 
operation, the result is a course, arrested and diverted in some 
direction, either by what we call accident, or design. 
Hitherto, as in the case of the parachute, accidental circum- 
stances have alone determined the deviation. 
It has been the great desire of man for ages to supply, either 
in his own person, or by the aid of apparatus, or by self-acting 
machinery, the third requirement for flight, viz. force, which 
may enable him to impel a plane surface at the proper angle of 
inclination against the air, and thus to nullify the effect of 
gravity. 
Necessarily, the relative proportion of sustaining surface to 
weight, and of power to uphold and propel that weight, have 
occupied much attention. Considerable misconception has 
existed upon these two points, and to this is mainly due the 
tardy progress of the science of aeronautics. In England, the 
subject has really never engaged the attention of scientific men, 
except under the form of aerostation, in the earlier years of its 
discovery. 
There have ever been persistent believers, and experimenters, 
and in the influential association which has been organised 
under the name of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, 
embracing amongst its supporters some of the first scientific men 
of the day, with the Duke of Argyll as President, the subject of 
aeronautics has been elevated into a science. 
The Papers ” read at the meetings of this Society, held at 
the Society of Arts, have contained much that is novel and sug- 
gestive, and evidence the fact, that scientific men have at length 
entered upon this wide field of discussion. In a paper by M. 
De Lucy of Paris, translated from the French by Dr. Cornelius 
Fox for the Aeronautical Society, there is detailed the result of 
actual experiments made by the author, with a view of de- 
termining the extent of wing surface to the weight to be sus- 
tained, and of the force requisite to raise and impel in horizontal 
flight. 
It will assist in rendering interesting the description of several 
designs lately exhibited at the Crystal Palace, if some of M. 
(le Lucy’s statements and deductions are more widely dissemi- 
nated. 
Iliis author asserts, that there is an unchangeable law, to 
which lie has never found any exception, amongst the consider- 
able number of liirds and insects, whose weight and measure- 
mentr lie has taken, viz. that the smaller and lighter the 
wingf-d animal is, the greater is the comparative surface. Thus 
in (emfiaring insects with one another: the gnat, which weighs 
•Uio times h-ss than the stag-beetle has 14 times greater 
relative surface. '1 he lady-bird wliich weighs 150 times less 
