The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-06-12
WAR AND AERIAL SHIPS.
POSSIBILITIES REGARDING FUTURE
FLYING MACHINES.

| How Vast Navies and Expensive Land
Fortifications Might Be Rendered Use
| Iess-Antiquity of the Idea of Flying.
Some Schemes of the Ancients.
Regarding the rate of propulsion of the
| future flying machine, Professor j. Elf
| teth Watkins, the distinguished mechani-
| cal expert, declares that it simply depends
upon the size of the propeller used and
| the rate at which the fans are reyolved.
In his opinion the old theory that the at
| mosphere was too tenuous medium foi
a propeller to act upon has been demon
| strated to be nonsense. Sufficient resist
| ance is offered by it TO render possible an
enormous speed, so that it would not be
too much to surmise that a properly con-
structed air ship might accomplish the
! distance between Chicago and New York
| within an hours time.
| Necessarily, however, there would be q
limit to rapidity of fight, inasmuch as a
propeller ceases to propel after certain
number of revolutions per second has
| been reached. 1t is open to any ones OBJ
servatiNn that a vessels propeller, oper-
ating in the water, often revolves much
faster when the craft is moving slowly
than when it is going fast.
Attention was called by Mr.. Hazen to
the tremendous revolution which the in
PRODUCTION of practical air ships would
work in the methods of offense and de-
tense in war. Fortifcations. on which
it is suggested that Uncle Sam shall ex-
pend 500, O00. 200 as soon as possible,
would be of little use against flying ma
chimes that could drop dynamite and
other explosives iron aloft. Likewise
ships of war, however heavily armored,
would be at the mercy of hostile aerial
navigators.
COSTLY GUNS RENDEEED USELESS.
In such a case batteries of a descrip-
ton altogether new wound have to be
devised for shooting vertically, and the
general defending position on terra
frma would be obliged to assall the
winged foe with volIey5 OF bombs d1-
rected upward, as one would shoot
ducks on the wing. Should such state
of affairs come to pass, it seems likely
that the conflicts of the future between
nations will have to be fought out in the
air between squadrons Of flying men-A'f-
war; About that time one would mag
inc, it would be considered that the
period had arrived, so long looked for
by military thinkers, when there could
be no more fighting because 1t would be
too vastly destructive.
Having achieved the conquest Of the
waters, it is natural that man should
likewise desire the mastery of the air,
and thus in all ages the human race has
been ambitious to fly. The earliest at
tempt in this direction recorded by ira
dition is the mythical account of Dae-
dalus. who, having constructed the cele-
brated labyrinth for Minos, king Of
Crete, was so unfortunate as to offend
that monarch, and being imprisoned,
escaped with the aid Of wings made of
feathers cemented with wax.
Another ancient story of Archytas, OF
Tarentum, who constructed wooden
pigeon that had power to fly, SO nicely
was it bala i by weight and put to
motion by inciosed air. If there is any
truth in the account, it seems probable
that Archytas was a fakir and worked
his bird with a string, as is done On the
stage. The ancients, generally speak
ing, made no attempts In the direction
of aeronautics, believing that the power
of fight could only appertain to the
most powerful gods.
OLD SCHEMES FOR FLYING.
Four centuries ago an ingenious gen.
tleman named Lauretus Taurus pub
Eshed a statement to the effect that
swans eggs filed with quicksilver, when
exposed to the sun, would ascend in tine
air, but it is not recorded that the ex-
pertinent was ever subjected satlsfac-
torily to scientific test. In 1870 Jesuit,
Francis Lana, proposed to make four
copper balls, each twenty-five feet IN
diameter and only four one-thousandths
Of an inch in thickness, from which the
air was to be exhausted.
To these balls a basket was to be at
tached, with a mast and sail, and the
calculation was that the continuance
would carry 200 pounds. Unfortunate
" it was discovered that the excessive
thinness of the copper spheres would
cause them to be broken when vacuum
was created inside of them by the press
ure Of the atmosphere from without.
Nevertheless, this suggestion ap- !
preached more nearly to a practicable |
idea in aerostatics than any other offered |
UP to the time Of the invention Of the |
balloon in 1873 by the brothers Mont
golfer So late as 1915 Joseph Gslien,
a Dominican friar and professor IN
philosophy, contended that it would be |
possible TO collect the raTefed air OF
some lofty mountain top and lnclose 1t |
in a huge vessel a mile in diameter, |
which would carry ffty-four times as
much weight as did Noah's ark.
Funnily enough, nearly all the early 1
theorists on this subject imagined that |
the atmosphere merely covered the /
earth ike shallow ocean, on which the /
aerial vessels they had in mind were IN !
tended to float, like ships IN the sea,
with their upper portions in the diHuse
ether that lay above.-W ashington star.