The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1894-04-30
WAX AND AERIAL SHIPS.
POSSIBILITIES REGARDING FUTURE
FLYING MACHINES.

How Vast Navies and Expensive Land
Qualifications Might BE Rendered Use~
less-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 revolved
In his opinion the old theory that the at
mosphere was 700 tenuous a medium for
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 a
limit to rapidity of fight, inasmuch as q
propeller ceases to propel after a certain
number of revolutions per second has
been reached. 1t Is open to any ones OBJ
servation 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. Fortifications, on which
it is suggested that Uncle Sam shall ex-
pend $50, 600, 900 as soon as. possible,
would be of little use against flying ma
chimes 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.
COSTLY GUN RENDERED USELESS.
In such a case batteries of a descrip-
| ton altogether new would have to be
devised for shooting vertically, and the
general defending a position on terra
hrma would be obliged to assail the
winged foe with volleys Of bombs di-
rected upward, as one would shoot
ducks on the wing. Should such a 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
cir between squadrons Of flying men-of'
war. About that time one would lmag'
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 it 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 D9
dalus, who, having constructed the cele
brated labyrinth for Minos, king O.
Crete. was so unfortunate as to offend
that monarch, and beng imprisoned
escaped with the aid Of wings made O.
feathers cemented with wax.
Another ancient story of Archytas, O.
Tarentum, who constructed a WOOde1
pigeon that had power to fly, SO NIGEL!
was it balanced by weight and put t.
motion by inclosed air. If there is an,
truth in the account, it seems probabl
that Archytas was a fahir and worke
his bird with a string, as is done on tn
stage. The ancients, generally speak
ing, made no attempts in the direction
of aeronautics, believing that the poWe
of fight could only appertain to tn
most powerful gods.
OLD sCHEMES FOR LYING.
-Four centuries ago an ingenious gen
~1I