The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-07-05
FLYING MACHINE BOOM.
LANGLEY,s SUCCESS HAS AROUSED
AERIAL INVENTORS.


All Kinds of queer Devices Throng
the Patent Omce--liirds That Fly
in Harness and Flying Fishes.
Houses with Wings, Umbrellas
for sails. and other Notable Pro-
ducts of CranEs.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Washington, d. c.. June 27.-There is a
boom in flying machines. Recent adver-
tisements of Prof. Langley's success with
his bird-like "aerodrome" have reused
the sumbering genius of yankee invent
ors II the correspondence of the patent
office may be considered as reliable in
dication. 1t is felt-and not without good
reasons-that the practical airship is lit
erary almost on the point Of being
launched. The creation Of it will mark
a new era in the development Of civiliza~
ton. Hence the excitement is not with
out warrant.
one hears so much of the cratic quail
itv of yankee inventive talent that peo-
nile have come to imagine that ideas Of
Aving machines are peculiarly American.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The fact is that vastly more attention
has been given to this sort of investiga-
tion abroad than here The English have
ten such patents for our one, and the
French and Germans are quite as enthu-
siastic on the subject. Indeed, inquiry
proves that the patents in flying ma
chimes taken out in this country are
largely held by foreigners.
Bills are introduced in every congress
to furnish money for the construction Of
hying machines. Only the other day one
was offered by Senator PETER, in behalf
of James S. Cowden, who wants $l5'mO
TO build an airship on the mechanical
principle of the fish, which animal is re-
garded by the inventor as a more satis'
! factory model than the oft-used bird II
is a fact, interesting in this connection,
that a patent was granted in 1878 for a
balloon in the shape Of a fish. Many
/ wears later Charles f. Spencer secured
| Exclusive rights in a contrvance that was
| a sort of cross between fsh ana Dro.
| II was Intended to run along the ground
| for a space in order to get start launch-
ing itself in the air thereupon ana gums
| ahead by means of revolving fans.
| Dr s b Battey is the inventor or an
| aerostat that is formed like a gigantic
| fish. with a body of sheet aluminium aho
| a fan-shaped tail. The BODY Is supper teu
| nv a pair OF wings that run its length
| their inclination being controlled by a
| nilot wheel so that the aerial vessel Is
| able TO rise or to descend at Will. 1t is
| propelled by a series of explosions IN the
/ rear. small pellets of nitro glycerlne being
| fed automatically into cup opening
| backward and discharged by electricity
| 1t will be plainly seen from this descrlp.
1 ton that if the machine does not noal
| and travel, the patentee Is not at 1aulti
| he has provided for everything.
| At the same time IL must be admitted
| that there is no more interesting typ
| of aerial traveller than the steam DlIu
/ Tn q axr
| has wings made of real feathers, con-
| nected with the piston rod OF steam cyi-
| inder which in rising and falling haps
! the wings up and down The boiler con-
| sists of a number of small tubes In or
| der TO afford a large heating surface
| win little weight and small require
| nent of water. The heat is obtained by
burning vaporized hydrocar1on with a
| hot air blast The exhaust steam is
| condensed in the hollow tail of the ma
| chine, thus saving the water for use
again and again.
| An up-to-date inventor is X. f. Moore.
His machine is a counterfeit of bat
| on a gigantic scale, the wings of aluml-
| mum and the frame covered with gold
4 heaters skin. Thus the utmost possible
/ Hghtness is secured. Tne load ana drlV-
1 ing machinery are suspended beneath,
/ PROPULSION being accomplished by thc
| mapping Of the wings. Another ingenius
/ patentee proposes to make wings OF enor-
| nous artificial feathers OF tin and SILK
1
| 10 fiap along, using his tail feathers for
| An idea that really seems practicable
| is attributed to a German named schultz
! He proposes to send up balloon from a
| shin for the purpose of attacking forts on
| shore In a case of this sort an impor-
! tant difficulty lies in the weight OF the
| rope by which the balloon remains attach
| ed to the ship. 1t would drag the ball
| loon down, but for Schultz's valuable sug-
| gestion. which comprehends the employ
| ment Of smaller auxiliary balloons to
sustain the cable. With this arrangement
| it is easy for the balloon to take advan-
| taRe of a favoring breeze and float over
| the Notifications attacked, dropping ex-
| plosive cartridges containing nitroglyce-
| rim or dynamite from alott,
| Formerly the United states patent Of
/ fee was accustomed to grant patents for
| flying machines without the slightest re-
| ference to the practicabllity of the no.
/ tons they represented. Nowadays 1t is
| different and exclusive rights are refus-
| ed 10 inventors whose theories are too
/ obviously absurd. The aeronautic class
| of inventors is regarded as q crank
| class, yet ideas are found in II which
are in the direct line of the evolution OF
| the practical airship that is destined TO
| be some day. The first American pat
| ent for a flying machine, by the way,
was granted to Muzio Muzzi, an Ital-
| IAN in 1874
The most distinguished rank of modern
| times in the line Of aerial navigation was
| the Earl of Aldborough, who in 1856 and
| subsequent years took out a number OF
| patents on flying machines, which he del
| scribed with a defniteness that would
! have done credit to George Francis Train.
| Nobody has ever been able to make out
| the meaning of his specifications. They
! cover many pages of the British patent
| office reports, accompanied by elaborate
| drawings. Some of the drawings repre-
! sent attacks upon forts by fleets of ball
| looms 1t is obvious that the earl was in
| sane, but the British patent office has
never required that an idea offered TO It
| should possess elements of practicabl
ness. You pay your money, and you can
| get a patent there for converting the