The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-06-11 00:00:00

THE AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY.

A general meeting of members of the above society
was held on Friday in the Theatre of the Society of
Arts, Adelphi, London. The chair was taken by Mr.
Glaisher, of the Royal Observatory.
The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, expressed
his regret that the objects of the society had nut made
much progress during the past year, but hoped that
the papers they were about to have read would prove
interesting.
Mr. Welter Clure then proceeded to give his views
on aeronautic science. He contended, as we under.
stood, that manual fight would be the ultimate
triumph of aeronauts, and reminded the meeting that
the ancients had devoted their attention exclusively
to that branch of the subject. He combated the many
popular errors that prevailed as to the indisp.nsable
conditions of manual fight, cootending that the means
by which birds were enabled to fly were as yet but very
impafeetly known, even to the scientific. He believed
that man would ultimately be made a flying animal,
but there were certsin artificial difficulties to he over-
come before the much.desired object was attained.
Air was, as a matter of fact, as solid as any other
material, and it is only required that the person Peek.
in; to fly should be able to get up a sufficient initial
velocity to create in the air a solid resistance. Ilia
suggestion was that m-n should be taught to fly as
youths were taught to swim in Germany, namely, by
being suspended by a tops, when he could in safety
make experiments with an artificial flying apparatus.
He was quite willing to offer himself to the furtherance
of scienie as a rotary pendulum bob, if the seronautic
Society should think anything of his suggestions.
Mr. S. Harrison described come experiments which
be had made with what he called an renal velocipede.
His starting principle was that a screw propeller eet to
act in the air merely churned the column of air upon
which it worked without making progress, but if it
were attached to a velocipede upon which a good rider
could advance at the rate of ten miles an hour on a
smooth road, the weight of the velocipede and Its
rider would be gradually diminished, and flight might
thus at last be attained. His plan was to attach a plane
of oiled silk to the velocipede, and at the corners of
this plane to fix his propellers. Mr. Ilarriron illustrated
his theory by chalk diagrams on the black board, and
seemed to convince the meeting that he bad at last
made acme advance towards a true theory of aerosta.
tine, . . . . . . .

The chairman said that the het speaker had really
touched the true principle. If ever they obtained
perfect aerostation it must be by means of an initial
velocity, acting on an inclined aero plane. Mr. Haul.
son's idea seemed to lead up to both these dedderata,
and he thought it would be worthy work for the society
to test his theory by experiment.
After some purely scientific discussion on the action
of the anemometer, gentleman suggested that a light
canoe working on the water, would be a better medium
of experiment with the propellers than the velocipede.
Mr. ',Aug °trick, consulting engineer, observed that;
the inventors of the sewing machine had not succeeded
by endeavouring to imitate the old sewing process.
They started on an entirely new principle, and aeronauts
if they wished to succeed, must do the same. They
must not follow or study the flight of birds, but invent
an entirely new plan of faeroatation. What they wanted
was patient experiment, and experiments cost money;
aerostation could therefore only be studied successfully
by wealthy societies.
The discussion terminated with the usual vote of
thanks to the reader of the paper.
An instrument for measuring the pressure of the
air wos exhibited, and explained by Dr. Smith, and
very much commended by the chairman.