Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-05-09

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bird relies for fight upon tapping. The hedsla
Tor suoh eontrivsnces ct the patent Office
here show this sufficiently well. Aeroplanea
wiz represent the birds wings in the air ship
o. the time 70 come. Such, ct al events, il the
stnmiss. and the likelihood seems TO be that a
powerful win supply the motive force. Sec
ondiy, the motive force required will be least
for the greatest speed, and SO proportionately.
Az IMPORTANT DIFFICULTY.
Prof. Langley's notion seems to be this. that
such continuance as he conceives, elevated in
the air, would have no trouble 10 uphold itself
In motion supposing that its engineer knew
how 70 defect its supporting wings In this
point there lies an important difficulty, mas
| has no knowledge Whatever OF the art
which the birds have transmitted to
| their progeny for thousands and thousands Of
generations, ever since, rs the scientists say,
they were first evolved from reptiles in an an
cient geological epoch But the honorable sec
rotary Of the Smithsonian Institution is OF the
opinion that il Is possible for human beings, with
practice fortified by their superior intelligence.
| to learn how to use wings in this way. Just as
small boys acquire the art Of walking upon
stills, although such members are altogether
| artificial When this art has been acquired,
man, hitherto untutored in the science of navi-
eating space, will launch himself abroad and
| chase the fugacious meteorites on tireless
motor-actuated pinions
Seriously, however, there does not seem TO be
any good reason wherefore such mechanical
principles Is these should not be successfully
applied for navigating the air. At the Begin
ming the problem Of steering and the weight of
the motor present themselves as the two
most serious obstacles. Prof. Langley has
proposed to get over these preliminary diff
fcuities by running the first flying machine
on w1re, such as Is used tor a certain sort of
electric cars. In this case, however, the
machine Is to ny above, perhaps at a height of
z0O feet, with an attachment to the wire below
that runs along the tops Of telegraph-like poles.
A motor at each end of the Iiue will do the
propelling. Thus there will be no engine to
carry and the wire will do the steering.
HOW DID THE BIRDS LEARN
to fy originally? To escape from their carnivor-
Gus enemies they developed wings and acquired
the art Of navigating the air through practice.
Now that the true principle Of fight has been
discovered it would seem possible to apply it to
mechanics 80 as TO secure for man, with sutii-
cient experience, the same power. The
muscles OF the human being are not strong
enough for the purpose, and so he must con-
struct a chariot Of some sort to carry him, with
| machine on board to do the work. Prof.
Langley ideas OH this subject are shared by
the foremost scientific men Of the day who
branch Of research to which n great deal Of at
tention is being paid ut present. Their al
most unanimous conclusion is that the
| soaring bird must be the model for the success
full flying continuance of the future. The in
vestigation Of problems respecting aerial Volt
tation is no longer relegated to cranks: in fact
the foremost investigator in this line now liv-
ing, Mr.. Octave Chanute. is president of the
American Society Of Engineers. He took
occasion recently to call attention to
some rather absurd conclusions reached
by certain French theorists who promulgated
the astonishing statement as the result of their
calculations that q swallow in flying forty
miles an hour must exert one-tenth of one
horse power. an eagle ten horse power and a
forty-pound crane about forty horse power
To suppose that an eagle or a turkey buzzard
Is as strong as ten horses he deemed q triHe
ridiculous
THE RATE OF SPEED.
Regarding the rate Of propulsion Of the future
flying machine. Prof. J. Elfreth Watkins. the
distinguished mechanical expert. declares that
it simply depends upon the size Of the propeller
used and the rate ut which the fans are re-
volved. In his opinion the old theory that the
atmosphere was too tenuous a medium for a
| to be nonsense. Sufficient resistance is
offered by it to render possible an
enormous speed, so that ii would not
be too much to surmise that a properly
constructed air ship might accomplish the dis
tance between Chicago and New York within
an hours time. Necessarily, however. there
would be a limit to the rapidity Of fight mas
much as a propeller ceases to propel after a
certain number Of revolutions per second has
been reached. 1t is open to any ones observa-
ton that a vessels propeller, operating in the
water, often revolves much faster when the
craft is moving slowly than when 1t is going
fast.
orrESsE AND Defense IN WAR
Attention was called only the other day bv
Dir. Hazen to the tremendous revolution which
the introduction Of practicable air ships would
| work in the methods of offense and defense in
| war. FortificatiOns, on which it is suggested
that Uncle Sam shall expend $4,000. Ooo as
| soon as possible. would be OF little use against
flying machines that could drop dynamite and
other explosives from alOft. Likewise ships of
war, however heavily armored. would be at the
| mercy of hostile aerial navigators. In such a
| case batteries of description altogether new
would have to be devised for shoot
ing vertically, and the general defending q
position on terra hrma would be obliged to as
sail the winged foe with volleys of bombs d.
| rected upward. as one would shoot ducks OH
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-of-
war. About that time, one would imagine it
would be considered that the period had ar.
| rived SO long looked for by military thinkers,
when there could be no more fighting because
it would be too vastly destructive
EARLY ATTEMPTS TO FLY.
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 attempt in this direction recorded by
| tradition Is the mythical account of Daedalus.
who, having constructed the celebrated LADY,
rinth for Minos, King of Crete, was SO unfor-
tuna.e as to offend that monarch, and be-
ing imprisoned, escaped with the aid
of wings made of feathers cemented with
| wax. Another ancient story is Of Archytas
| of Tarentum, who constructed a wooden pigeon
| that had power to fly, SO nicely was it balanced
| by weight and put in motion by inclosed air.
| Ii there is any truth in the account it seems
| probable that Archytas was q fakir and worked
| his bird with O string as is done On the stage.
The ancients. generally speaking. made no at
tempts in the direction OF aeronautics, that the
| power Of fight cOuld only appertain to the most
| powerful gods. Four centuries ago an ingenious
| gentleman named Lauretus Taurus published q
| statement to the effect that swans eggs filled
with quicksilver. when exposed to the sun,
wonld ascend in the air. but it Is not recorded
| that the experiment was ever subjected
| satisfactorily to scientific test. In 1910
| = Jesuit, Francis Lana. proposed to make four
copper balls, each twenty-five fest in diameter
| aud only four One-thousandths Of an inch in
thickness, from which the air was to be sx.
| hausted. To these balls q basket was to be
had IN a.,I flxn lo,,