Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-03-16
seventeenth century, and on ms tomb
ara carved, IN French, the lines:
Come, birdie. come,
Aud fly with me.

Come, birdie, come,
And fly with me-
He broke his leg while trying to fiy
with hired girl weighing 1856 pounds.
In after years he wore cork leg, and
when his wife wished him to fold his
wings and come off the perch she would
lock up his cork leg in her bureau drawer
and conceal the key in the family Bible.
Being Free Thinker, he never discov-
cred the key, and for many years was at
the mercy of his wife.
About century and a quarter later
Jacob Degen, prisoner at Vienna, con-
structed an apparatus having two um
brella-like wings on eaCG side of the op-
orator and worked by manual power.
lie was convict, however, and the
rather rigid rules governing prison life
lnterfered with his experiments. The
jailer would allow him to fly to height
of fifty feet, but had cord attached to
the machine so that Degen could not es-
cape.
One day he cut the rope and scared
away into the ether blue; but as he was
putting his thumb to his nosein an atti-
tude of derision at the warden his off
wing buckled to, and moment later he
fell with dismal PUNK into a mortar
bed just outside the penitentiary. After
that he wore a look of chastened sorrow
and truss.
The great difficulty experienced by the
flying machine men Of all ages is to over
come the atmospheric influences suffi-
GENTLY to float the stock. Besnier wanted
also to be able to rise by his own unaided
efforts, like self made and sockless
statesman. He wanted to be able to
light out when ''shooed," but whether
he ''shooed' or 'shooed not" he died
unsatisfed. Poor man, he did not know
whether he shooed or shooed not skin
through the aeronaut.
This is what call a reciprocity Joke.
1t is for use il our trade with England.
Poetry written by Lord Tennyson taken
in exchange. Better jokes offered, how
ever, in trade for Tennyson's earlier
work, done when he was poet.
In the manufacture of flying ma
chimes we are apt to forget that the
pectoral muscles of bird are greater
than all the other combined muscular
tissue of the fowl put together, while in
man the pectoral muscles comprise only
one-seventieth of those in the body. So
man must rely upon extraneous methods
of propulsion, and artificial flying be-
comes extremely difficult.
In the middle of the present century
a bill was introduced into the house of
commons by Mr.. Roebuck to incorporate
a company for the purpose of working a
gigantic flying machine, also the stock
holders.
ct comprised horizontal plane made
of wire and hollow wooden bars, ar
ranged on the principle of trussed
girder and covered with silk" pre-
sumo the motto of the company was the
same as that on the silver dollar-s.In
God We Trussed."
This plane was furnished with pro-
peller driven by steam engine. A tail
capable of being brought to any desired
angle-accordlng to whether the owner
felt elated or depressed, presume-was
arranged $50 that when the power acts
to propel the machine by inclining the
tail upward the resistance offered by
the air Will cause the machine to rise,
and when the tail IS reversed the ma
chine is propelled downward and passes
through a plane more or less inclined to
the horizon, as the inclination of the tail
is greater or less"
Decentralization of the tail, however. was
intensely dOwnward-an inclination in
which the stockholders shared. The ma
chine was desi yned for carrying freight.
passengers and mail, but so far most all
shippers are sending merchandise and
mail by other routes. The whole appa-
ratus weighed 5000 pounds, and there
fore made quite large dent in one of
the planets on her trial trip.
The tail had an area of 1,500 square
feet, and when jauntily thrown over the
dashboard had a tendency to obstruct
the view.
This machine also was unable to rise
from its jimson weeds and soar away
into the empyrean blue like sandhin