( no ) 
[January^ 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Aerial Navigation. By the late Charles Blackford Mans- 
field, M.A. Edited by his Brother, R. B. Mansfield, M.A. 
London : Macmillan and Co. 1877. 
The late Mr. Mansfield was best known as an accomplished 
chemist, but he wrote upon various subjects, and possessed an 
uncommon breadth of culture. His “ Travels in Paraguay ” is 
a very suggestive book, quite beyond the usual run of narratives 
of travel. He was an accurate scientific worker, possessed a 
keen insight into the mysteries of Nature, and was moreover 
gifted with a fine imaginative faculty. He had something of the 
genius about him, and from whatever point of view we observe 
his faculties we see at a glance that he was no mediocrity. Some 
insight into the breadth of his reading may be obtained at the 
very outset. After the dedication of his “ Aerial Navigation ” 
“ To the Industrious of All Nations,” he places before his Preface 
a few quotations from various writers, which seem to strike the 
key-note of his theme : he quotes from Tennyson’s “ Locksley 
Hall,” Jacob Behmen’s “ De Signatura Rerum,” Friar Bacon’s 
“ De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae,” Chancellor Bacon’s 
u Sylva Sylvarum,” and Plans Christian Andersen’s “ Ugly 
Duckling.” The work itself is unfortunately unfinished, and it 
is much to be regretted that no less than twenty-five years have 
elapsed since it was written ; yet it is said that no book has ap- 
peared during that period which has taken the place in the 
literature of the subjedl which this volume was meant to occupy. 
It seems to have been thrown off from the author’s brain, as a 
mere mental exploit, to relieve himself of a burden. “ My objedt 
in writing it,” he says, “ will be simply to deliver my brain of a 
burden which came upon it uninvited.” 
The work is divided into three parts, of which the first states 
the problem to be solved, the second gives hints for its solution, 
while the third takes the form of some very useful appendices. 
It is clear that there are two methods by which a body may be 
sustained in the air: first, by mechanical force applied to the 
air, as in the case of the flight of birds ; secondly, by the attach- 
ment of a buoj^ant body, as in the case of a balloon. The 
author does not consider the sustention and propulsion of a man 
in the air, by his own muscular effort, an impossibility ; and he 
further believes that a good grip of the air could not be obtained 
with a propelling surface and mechanism weighing less than 
10 lbs., which we should have considered an extreme minimum. 
