The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-05-22
SOLOMON ANDREWS FLYING SHIP.


Whoever walks down Houston street nova
days is compelled to notice on the corner of
Greene street a rough board fence Of remarkable
height, and so closely made as to be proof
against the eyes of the most curious. If nothing
else calls his attention to it, the group of vaga-
bond boys will be enough, as they hang about
the entrance and stare at singular engraving;
or perhaps, no policeman being present, fur
lively fling stone, or a sharp-edged oyster
shell, over the top OF the wall. Within the mys.
sterious inclosure is the flying vessel-the ship
which can sail hundred and fifty miles an
hour, which easily sails dead against the wind
which discards steam and coal and engines, and
for motive-power relies on the attraction of
gravitation, which is to supersede railway trains
and steamboats, as q means Of travelling by sea
and land, which can cross the ocean in less than
three days; which, if you build it of metal and
that can be done without the smallest trouble,
will become available not only for the convey
ance OF passengers but also for the transporta-
ton of the heaviest and bulkiest merchandise
1t is the aerial ship, the aereon General
Schenck, which is to do all this, which is to
more than realize MIR. DarWin's predictions
which is to prove that Tennyson's airy navies
graphing in the central blue are not only a
time when governments shall choose become
fact. Already, in New York, company is in
existence, with president and directors, and
subscribed capital, and an office in Walker
street, which intends at once to fix upon routes
of aerial navigation between our great cities,
and construct aerial vessels for conveying pas
sengers and freight, and which, as we have seen,
has already built one ship that is now floating at
anchor in Houston street. Her, within ten
days, shall We not see as she comes sailing
down town at no great distance above our heads,
tacking and filling, ascending and descending,
going with the wind and against il, visiting any
part OF the city, as the helmsman may direct,
and at the end of the voyage coming into harbor
on the exact spot from which she set out?
The payment of dollar admits you to a close
inspection OF this wonder. Going in from the
level of the street, one finds before him the site
of some building that has been utterly de.
strOyed by fire. The rubbish has been mostly
cleared away, and he descends by a flight of
many steps to what was once the cellar floor.
The neighbols of the burnt building still re.
main so the visitor when he gets to the bottom
OF the steps, is, at the bottom OF great square
pit, the sides OF which are either Lofty brick
walls, or, II the walls are low at any place, the
wooden fence is seen surmountug them. There
is sand undcr foot and a strong smell of gas
around and high above, balanced in the air,
the ship itself, great buff colored cloud with
network OF cords around it, strains at the
ropes that hold it down, and casts shadow
over the sand
She is o balloon, not round like ball but
elODgdLeU anu dI bdCn euu running TO q Sldrp
point. AS the ship is now lying, these beaks,
her PROV and stern, point wards the horizon,
and II is not Intended that they snail ever point
up and down towards the zenith and the nadir.
FIom end to end her length is eighty.six Ieet,
and her diameter from side to side at the point
of greatest width is forty-two feet. In shape
she would look much like an Indians bark
canoe, supposlng the top of the canoe to be
closed as the bottom is, II it were not tor
leather strap which, passing from the bow, goes
underneath the vessel TO the stern, and then is
carried along the top to the bow again. AS the
balloon swells against this band, there is created
longitudinal depression extending the whole
length of the vessel, and like the cavity made
when two cylinders are laid side by side, and
this depression can be created at the captains
will.
lis capacity is &C, 900 cubic feet, and the mate.
rial OF which it is made is very heavy pongee
silk. AS you look up, a portrait of General
Scott, In colors once gaudy but now faded,
stares down from the forward part of the bal
loon, and on the after part there is General
Mcclellan, for the inventor of the flying ship,
in building II, has used the material of two old
army balloons, and has adapted it to it's present
use, with characteristic ingenuity. The lower
half, say, of each balloon was left whole, the
upper part from zenith to equator was cut as an
orange peel is cut then, by fitting these saw
toothed ends into each other balloon was OBJ
tanned new Ii shape and cheap In cost. Under
meath the balloon Is a narrow, wicker-work car
twelve feet long. secured by many ropes.
Characteristic ingenuity" we said, and these
are words that may well enough be applied to
the man who invented the famous Hobbs lock;
who invented the lock which is used in the
United States mail service; who, at the request
oil his oysterselling townsmen, that they might
be relieved trom the yoke OF the Connecticut
keg-makers, invented machinery by which
Jerseyman may make his own oyster.kegs, and
at the rate OF hundred day; who has invented
very many other things besldes so that even
the pipe which he held IN his mouth while he
talked with us about the air-ship, was CON
structed on principle entirely new.
1t is upon the shape of the vessel, he explained
to us, that everything depends. Fill round
balloon with gas and 1t ascends, don't it? Goes
up vertically Throw out ballast, it rises higher;
let gas escape, 1t sinks; but it has no forward
motion. You've seen it drift, you mean; go
hither and thther with the currents 1t has no
motion of its own except the vertical; no mo-
mentum, no motion relatively to the medium in
which II floats. But now If you fill with gas a
long. broad-backed, sharp-ponted balloon, a
balloon so shaped that vertical motion vim be
very hard Tor II, will be greatly resisted, what
viii happen theny How will such balloon 90
NM Lt will ascend in the direcLiOn OF the line