504, FLIGHT AND FLYING MACHINES. 
flapping wings. You saw M. Pénaud’s model bird fly a short distance, 
but I have here a model which rises by means of a screw, and which 
the French call a “helicoptére,” that is a screw-winged apparatus, and 
I hope to show you that it will go up to the top of this room. The 
elastic by which this model is propelled is not so powerful as that in 
M. Pénaud’s bird, but it rises higher, demonstrating conclusively the 
superiority of the screw propeller. 
Another pretty toy of the same kind has an aero-plane in the form 
of a parachute, which opens out when the apparatus descends; here 
the screw is beneath the parachute. 
Now, probably there are very few people who, if asked what was the 
best thing to fly with, would select a venetian blind for the purpose ; 
but a Mr. Phillips, who is a very clever engineer, has been led, after 
a number of elaborate experiments and a good bit of really careful 
theoretical investigation, to chose something very like one. ‘“ Phillips’s 
flying machine ”’ can hardly be strictly called a flying machine, because 
it has at present only been used in connection with the whirling table, 
but it has enabled Mr. Phillipsto prove that a number of small narrow 
surfaces will support a greater weight than a large flat surface of the 
same area. ‘The reason is this: we have already said that success in 
flying depends upon the quantity of air that the apparatus delivers 
downwards in order to lift itself upwards; the more air delivered 
downwards the better; and these successive slats coming into contact 
with a number of portions of air, all at rest at different heights, get a 
better grip on the air than a single large aero-plane, in which the 
hinder portion would only come in contact with the air that had 
already been set in motion downwards by the foremost portion. The 
machine is driven round by means of a little steam engine working a 
screw, and the experiments are carried on at Wealdstone, near Harrow, 
where the apparatus can be seen from the railway. Mr. Phillips has 
succeeded in lifting the weight of the machine off the ground by this 
arrangement, and so he finds that he derives a considerably greater 
lifting force from his structure than from an aero-plane. He spent a 
considerable amount of time and money on experimenting on large 
wide planes before coming to the present conclusion. 
We will now say a little about Mr. Maxim’s machine. This machine, 
when travelling at about 37 miles an hour, will lift itself off the ground, 
but in order that there may be no danger of any accident it runs on a 
railway, and outside that there is an outer railwav, so that as soon as ib 
rises a few inches from the ground it presses upwards on the outer 
rails and is thus prevented from becoming uncontrollable. You see it 
does not actually travel freely through the air, but it is held down by 
the outer rails. On one occasion, however, when the engine was 
developing 362 horse-power, the outer. rails were not strong enough, 
and the machine actually did fly. But that flight was a very expensive 
one, for it cost nearly £1,000 to repair the machine. After the 
accident the rails were all torn up, affording proof positive that the 
machine had sufficient power in proportion to its weight, not only to lift 
it into the air, but to bend the bars by which the outer wheels were 
attached. and to pull up the rails as well. 
