FLIGHT AND FLYING MACHINES, 505 
Now I feel sure that Mr. Maxim will not mind my saying that I 
liken his machine somewhat to certain angels that were represented in 
a beautiful picture in one of the Italian galleries; I believe they were 
flying down to save a dying child. A clergyman was dilating on the 
merits of these angels to a party of boys, when another man, who hap- 
pened to be going through the gallery at the time, remarked—“ Sure, 
Sir, and I see one great defect about those angels.”” ‘ Indeed,” said 
the clergyman, ‘‘ what is that?’ “Sure, you see the artist has given “ 
them enormously large wings to fly with, but he has given them no tails 
to steer themselves by.”” (Laughter). Now that represents the position 
of Mr.Maxim’s machine: he has got an enormously large aero-plane to fly 
with, but he is not yet sufficiently able to control the machine to trust 
himself in mid air. It is very important that we should do something 
in learning to control a machine that has completely left the ground, 
and what Mr. Maxim has not attempted Herr Lilienthal and others 
have successfully accomplished; that is to say, they have attached 
themselves to wings and have practised floating down from the top of 
a hill and balancing themselves in mid air. 
Herr Lilienthal had an experimental hill of conical shape, built about 
50 feet high, in the neighbourhood of Berlin, in order to try experi- 
ments there, so that whatever was the direction of the wind he could 
practice flying down on the hill side against the wind fairly easily. 
He runs a few steps down the hill and takes a header into the air. 
A number of photographs have been taken from the top of the hill 
and from different points showing Herr Lilienthal in mid air, and these 
photographs clearly show how difficult it is to balance oneself in the 
air; in one position he had to sway his legs right forward to prevent 
the machine tipping over. 
Another machine was constructed with flapping tips to the wings, 
which were to be driven by means of an engine worked by compressed 
carbonic acid. Herr Lilienthal tried this machine, hoping that by 
making the wings flap he would be able to sustain himself in the air a little 
longer; but, unfortunately, the increased size of the machine made it 
more unmanageable, and the result was that the flappers got broken, 
and I believe they have not yet been repaired. This year he has, to 
a certain extent, adopted Phillips’s idea of superimposed surfaces ; in- 
stead of having one wing surface he has two, and he gets much better 
results ; in fact he has actually been able to allow the wind to-pick him 
- up, and he has almost succeeded in soaring like the soaring of birds. 
One of the most difficult things to learn is how to land with a 
horizontal speed on. When beginning, one is certain constantly to 
tumble over forwards; the only way to stop is to get back in the 
machine and tilt it up in front so as to check the forward movement, 
_ thereby imitating the action of birds as revealed by M. Merey’s photo- 
pepe of a pigeon already mentioned. Of course this is very difficult at 
rst. or 
I will now show two or three paper gliders, in order to illustrate how 
very difficult this balancing is, I have here one glider consisting 
of a sheet of paper folded into a (YW shape and loaded with a 
light piece of wax at one end. This will go fairly well through the 
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