INTRODUCTION. 
23 
in one grand unity of univerfal brotherhood, the common 
family of man. 
When Dr. Franklin and his confreres of the Academy 
of Sciences, juft one hundred years ago, witnefled the 
afcent in a Montgolfier balloon of the firft human being 
who had ever thus penetrated to the region of the clouds, 
the world imagined the myftery folved and aerial naviga¬ 
tion an accomplifhed facft. In his book, Cavallo fpeaks 
of it as “ the art of travelling through the air .... at 
laft difcovered! ” And yet the world to-day, with regard 
to flying, ftands juft where it flood then; not one Angle 
inch advanced. No regular balloon-fteamers between 
London and Paris; no aerial clippers to or from New 
York, China, or Japan ; no winged Nihilifts, Socialifts, or 
Red Republicans hatching confpiracies among the clouds 
and hurling dynamitic thunderbolts upon the devoted 
heads of unhappy Czars, Emperors, and Kings. 
Livingftone, Speke, Stanley, and other African ex¬ 
plorers have had to “ do ” the fources of the Nile, the 
myftic Niger, and the Mountains of the Moon, in the old 
foot-fore way. Travellers continue to be eaten up by 
cannibals; and the cold fpit of the North Pole is ftill 
run through the vitals of unlucky Arctic explorers. In 
fhort, the bird continues to be “ mafter of the fituation,” 
and man, the evolutionized ape, the laughing-ftock of all 
the infe<ft world and feathered tribes! 
Why ? 
