382 Flighty Aspirations . [June, 
with the authority of an acknowledged scientist such as Dr. 
Lardner, who, in his “ Cyclopaedia ” of the edition of the 
year 1836, under the head of Hydrostatics, — which is too 
lengthy here to quote in full, — gives his reasons for asserting 
the impracticability of accomplishing, with any advantage, 
the then discussed employment of steam for ocean-going 
ships. He says — “ But we have here supposed that the 
same means may be resorted to for propelling boats on a 
canal, and carriages on a railroad. It does not appear 
hitherto that this is practicable.” He says again — “ The 
friction of a carriage on a railroad moving 60 miles an hour 
would not be greater than if it moved but 1 mile an hour (!); 
while the resistance on a river or canal, were such a motion 
possible, would be multiplied 3600 times.” By friction he 
means resistance, because in another place he says — “ The 
resistance on the road, instead of increasing, as in the canal, 
in a faster proportion than the velocity, does not increase at 
all.” So that we have it, upon the diCtum of Dr. Lardner, 
that a wind blowing upon a surface at 60 miles an hour — 
the conditions are only reversed — produces no greater 
pressure than if it were blowing with a velocity of but 1 mile 
an hour. In each assertion of the rate of resistance Dr. 
Lardner was intensely wrong.* 
The late Sir Wm. Fairbairn became a member of the 
Council of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. Now 
the supporters of this Society entertain two diverse opinions, 
but both parties aim at macadamising the aerial highway so 
as to make it subserve the purposes of transit. To the or- 
dinary observer there is only one way. It is that which has 
been brought hitherto under his observation. Sir William 
was a balloonist. The balloon is a fad beyond dispute, so 
that all we have got to do, says he, is to propel it. It is 
given only to the man who has made its propulsion a study, 
and has been left gazing regretfully after the money which 
he has expended in his vain attempts after utility, to estimate 
rightly the opinions of that section which may be designated 
by the title “ Gravities,” in opposition to that of “ Levitites.” 
The Gravitites contend that the objed of aerial transit will 
be effected by opposing the resistance of the air to the aCtion 
of gravity ; that whilst gravity is a constant force the resist- 
ance of the air is under control, so that it can be made sub- 
servient to the support of any weight, the surface of which 
is sufficiently extended, and propelled with the requisite 
* A train of carriages and engine weighing 300 tons would meet with a 
resistance of 3870 lbs , at 10 miles an hour, which would be increased to 12,470 
pounds at 0o miles an hour, irrespective of its advance against the air, 
