A498 FLIGHT AND FLYING MACHINES. 
These wings were double, and his idea. was that when you depressed 
them they would open, and when you raised them they would shut. 
Besnier made a few experiments; he first jumped off a stool, then he 
jumped off a table, then he jumped out of a window, and finally he 
actually succeeded in jumping off the top of a barn; and the Jowrnal 
des Savants tells us that his experiments met with “relative success.” 
Subsequently he sold the machine to an acrobat, who used it “ with 
success.” 
In 1709,a Portuguese, named Barthelemy Lourenco, designed a 
flying machine, of which illustrations occur in old books. ‘The idea was 
that two spheres were to contain some sort of magic substance, I am 
not sure whether it was electricity or magnetism (you observe that I 
speak of them as a substance, as they were considered so in those days) 
which would help the machine to lift itself into the air. I think that 
substance Lourenco had in view must really have been what all 
balloonists would give anything to find, namely, something which is 
lighter than nothing and hasa tendency upwards. In addition to these 
spheres there were a large number of funnels hanging from the top, 
which upon a windy day would conduct the wind to the under side of 
these awning and make it act as a sail. If the wind was not blowing, 
why you took a pair of bellows, as the man is doing in the old figure 
before us. If Barthelemy Lourenco could not make his machine fly, 
at any rate he knew how to play his cards very well. He wrote to the 
King of Portugal and explained his idea; he said he had invented a 
flying machine, and there was one favour he would like to ask of the 
King, namely, as it might be rather awkward for every one to be able 
to fly away out of his dominions when they were wanted, he asked the 
King to grant him the sole monopoly of making the machine. The 
King of Portugal wrote back to say that the request was far too 
modest a one, and that in consideration of this wonderful discovery, he 
appointed him professor of mathematics at the University of Coimbra, 
at a salary of 3,750 pounds a year in French gold. I could only wish 
that it was so easy to become a professor of mathematics now-a-days ! 
In spite of the Royal decree, however, the machine was never con- 
structed, but Barthelemy had got what he wanted. In 1742, the 
Marquis de Bacqueville tried to cross the Seine with wings. ‘That he 
went in to the water was, of course, to be expected, but unfortunately 
he broke his leg in addition, and the Histoire des Ballons tells us that 
the attempt produced no further results! About 1783, Mont Golfier 
invented the balioon ; and among his first disciples was one Blanchard. 
Before taking to balloons, Blanchard designed a most grotesque flying 
machine, in which you sat in a chair and by working levers with your 
arms and legs you raised and lowered four large paddles which were 
supposed to lift the machine. In the French picture a small boy is 
represented in the stern of the machine blowing a penny trumpet to 
warn people to get out of the way. Although the machine was 
designed, Blanchard expected to get too little recompense for his 
experiments, and he was going to leave the country when the Abbé 
Devrunay kept him back, and recommended him to take to balloons. 
Later on Blanchard and his wife both became well known aeronauts. 
