McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1884-05-29
FLYING MACHINES.
Bill Nye Chances Critically at These Me-
chanicai birds.

Bill Nye Chances Critically at These Me-
chanical Birds.
A long and exhaustive examination
of the history of flying machines ena-
bles me to give briefly some of the
main points of few for the benefit of
those who may be interested in this
science. l give what do in order to
prepare the public to take advantage
of the different methods, and be ready
at once to fly as soon as the weather
gets pleasant.
A Frenchman invented flying ma
chine, or dofunny as we scientists
would term it, in 1900 and something,
whereby he could sail down from the
woodshed and not break his neck. He
could not rise from the ground like the
lark and trill a few notes as he SKIM
med through the sky, but he could fall
off an ordinary hay stack like a setting
hen, with the aid of his wings. His
name was Besnier.
One hundred and twenty-five years
after that a prisoner at Vienna named
JACOB Dagen told the jailer that he
could fly. The jailer seemed incredu-
lous, and so Jake constructed pair of
double barrel umbrellas, that worked
by hand, and futtered with this ma
chine into the air fifty feet. He came
down in direct line and in doing SO
ran one of the umbrellas through his
thorax. am glad it is not the Gus
tom now to wear an umbrella in the
thorax.
In England during the present CEN
fury several inventors produced flying
machines, but in an evil hour agreed to
rise on them themselves, and SO they
died from their injuries. Some came
down on top of the machines, while
others preceded their inventions by q
few feet, but the result was the same.
The invention of flying machines has
always been handicapped, as it were,
by this fact. Men invent a flying ma
chine and then try to ride it and show
it off, and thus they are prevented by
death. from perfecting their rolling
stock and securing their right of way.
In 1912 Mr.. William Henderson got
out a ''two-propeller" machine, and
tried to incorporate a company to util-
ize it for the purpose of carrying let
ters, running errands, driving home
the cows, lighting the northern lights
and skImming the cream off the milky
way, but it didn't seem to compete very
successfully with other modes of travel,
and so Mr.. Henderson wrapped it up
in an old tent and put it away in the
haymow.
In 1858 Mr.. j. H. johnson patented
a balloon and parachute dingus which
worked on the principle of a ducks
foot in the mud. [ use scientific terms
because / am unable to express myself
in the common language of the vulgar
herd. This machine had tail which,
under great excitement, it would throw
over the dashboard as it bounded
through the air.
Probably the biggest thing in its way
under this head was the revival of fly
ing under the presidency of the Duke
of Argyle, the society being called the
Great Britain eronautical society. This
society made some valuable calcula-
tons, adding much to our scientific
knowledge and filling London with
cripples.
In 1869 Mr.. Joseph T. Kaufman in
vented and turned loose upon the peo-
pie of Glasgow an internal machine in
tended to soar considerably in a quiet
kind of way and to be propelled by
steam. 1t looked like the bird known
in ornithology as the "hyupthecrick,"
and had an air-brake, patent coupler,
buffer and platform. 1t was intended
to hold two men on ice and a rosewood
casket with silver handles. 1t was
mounted on wheels, and as it did not
seem to skim through the air very
much, the people of Glasgow hitched a
clothes-line to it and used it for band
wagon.
Rufus Porter invented an aerial dew
dad ten years ago in Connecticut,
where so many crimes have been COM
mitted since Mark Twain moved there.
This was called the "aroport," and
looked like seed ward floating through
space. This engine was worked by
springs connected with propellers. A
saloon was suspended beneath it, pre-
sumo on the principl- that when man
is intoxicated he weighs a pound less.
This machine foated around the rotun-
da of the Merchants exchange, in New
York city, eleven times, like a hen with
her head cut off, but has not been on
the wing much since then.
Other flying machines have been in
vented, but the air is not peopled with
them rs 1 write. Most of them have
folded their pinions and sought the
seclusion of the hen-house. It is to be
hoped that very soon some such ma
chine will be perfected whereby a man
may fit from the fifth story window of
the Grand Pacific hotel in Chicago to
Montreal before breakfast, leaving
nothing in his room but the furniture
and his kind regards.