3 ° 
REACTIVE LOCOMOTION. 
“heated air-cells,” <£ hollow bones and quills,” “inclined 
planes,” “ aero planes,” c< twifted planes or fcrews,” 
“ figure of eight ” theories, “ anterior and pofterior mar¬ 
gins ” of the wings, &c. &c.,—and numberlefs creatures, 
infeds, and birds, have all been tortured and experimented 
on to no ufeful purpofe whatever. 
What man needs to know, and what he muft know 
before the defert fpaces of the air can poflibly be tra- 
verfed by any mechanifm fhort of God’s creating, is by 
what procefs, by what agency, by what contrivance, can 
human ingenuity and human Ikill fucceed in charging the 
atmofphere with Force!—lifting force, floating force, 
impelling force. 
The atmofphere charged thus with force would then 
become the adive agent and propel the machine. Birds 
propel themfelves. The dragon-fly, holding itfelf on an 
even keel, travels as well backwards as forwards, being 
under the influence of a wind-preflure external to but 
created by itfelf, a wind-preflure that the creature by its 
own will controls at pleafure, and can with the quicknefs 
of thought fhift from one fide to the other—to front, to 
rear, to up, to down—to any and every point within the 
hollow concaves of the domed fphere of which it is at 
once the centre and the animating foul; a lphere that 
goes with it and that makes it independent of the external 
forces that roll and furge through all the regions of the 
air. 
