The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-06 00:00:00

MAN AS A WINGED CREATURE.

Some interesting talk took place at a meeting of the
Aeronautical Society, under the presidency of Mr. Glaisher,
Mr. Walter Clure contended that manual flight 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 indis-
pensable conditions of manual flight, contending
that the means by which birds were enabled to fly
were as yet but very imperfectly known, even to the
scientific. He believed that man would ultimately be
made a flying animal, but there were certain artificial
difficulties to be overcome 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
seeking to fly should be able to get up a sufficient initial
velocity to create in the air a solid resistance. His sug-
gestion was that men should be taught to fly as youths
were taught to swim in Germany namely, by being sus-
pended by a rope, when he could in safety make experi-
ments with an artificial flying apparatus. He was quite
willing to offer himself to the furtherance of science as a
rotatory pendulum bob, if the Aeronautic Society should
think anything of his suggestions. Mr. S. Harrison
described some experiments which he had made with
what he called an aerial velocipede. Hie starting prin-
ciple was that a screw propeller set 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 dimi- '
nished, 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.
Harrison illustrated his theory by chalk diagrams on the
black board, and seemed to convince the meeting that, he
had at least made some advance towards a true theory of
aerostation. The chairman said that the last speaker had
really touched the true principle. If ever they obtained
perfect aerostation it must be by means of an iniatial
velocity, acting on an incline aero plane. Mr. Harri-
son's idea seemed to lead up to both those desiderata,
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, a
gentleman suggested that a light canoe working on the
water, would be a better medium of experiment with the
propellers than the velocipede. Mr. Louis Olrick, con
suiting engineer observed that the inventors of the sew-
ing 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 fight of
birds, but invent an entirely new plan of aerostation.
What they wanted was patient experiment, and experi-
ments cost money ; aerostation could therefore only be
studied successfully by wealthy societies.