A PREFACE AND AN APOLOGY . 
9 
fo frequently) as before, my attention became fomewhat 
aroufed: particularly after the following occurrences. 
Having feen in the photographic gallery of an artift friend 
in Wafhington, D.C., a picture of what he called a flying 
machine, and feeling curious to fee it, I went out to the 
place where I was told I fhould And not only the machine 
but the inventor, an old Frenchman. Arrived at the 
grounds of “ The Wafhington Obfervatory” (for this was 
the place I was told to go to) the firft object that met my 
eyes as I entered the grounds was a dragonfly ! The poor 
little fellow was helplefs and a prisoner ; caught in the 
web of an enormous fpider, and ftruggling vainly to efcape. 
It is fcarcely neceflary for me to fay that I loft no time in 
fetting him free. I not only took him out, but releafed 
him from every filament in which he was entangled j and 
had the fatisfaction of feeing the flafti of his beautiful 
wings as he failed gracefully away through the air. (The 
Frenchman and his machine I did not fee.) But I could 
not help but be ftruck with the ftrangenefs of this “ coin¬ 
cidence.” I, in purfuit of a flying machine and its inventor, 
confronted again by a dragon-fly! and the very firfl thing 
too, to be feen by me! Can anyone wonder that I should 
now begin to think of the poflibility that fomething in 
the nature of a principle and a diflcovery might be lying 
fomewhere behind a dragon-fly f But the “ manifeftations ” 
did not flop here. What had thus far taken place, was as 
nothing to what I was yet to witnefs. And here I mu ft 
B 
