The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-18
SUNDAY, OCTOBER Is, 1903.
HOW DO BIRDS FLYp

Tn A recent issue of The Scientific American there is a lengthy and profuse- ly Illustrated paper by Professor Emile Ouarini on 'sThe flight of birds mechan- icafly considered" beginning with these words: "one of the puzzles that occupy airship inventors is the manner In which bird, while keping its wings spread and immovable, displaces itself in the air in straight line parallel with the horizon, and sometimes even raises itself"
 The writer may we'll speak of 1t as 'one of the puzzles" for the whole matter of bird flight is a puzzle which no scientist OF investigator has solved. For more than half a century we have been read ing essays and demonstrations and books relating to bird flight We have read a great deal on the subject, but no writer. 50 fer as our observation extends. has come near to a solution of the problem. ''The way of an eagle in the air" was wonderful to Solomon and 1t has been wonderful to all humanity to this day, but the flight of the eagle is no more in- explicable than is that of other fowls, and no man can explain the mystery of it.. E
 Let person. for example, watch the motions of the common buzzard when it leaves the earth. A vigorous motion of the wings raises it from the earth. then 1t starts to sailing in circles. occasionally napping it's wings to give it more momen- xuffa. After it has reached a height of one or two hundred feet the motion of khe wings stop. They remain perfectly snotlonIess so far as the eye can discern spread to their greatest extent and ap- parentiy of no use except to sustain tho weight of the fowl. We watch him sail- ang in continuous and never varying circles. never moving wing, until finally ne fades from sight. All this time he has been moving against. across or down khe wind. but rising continually and always keeping his wings fixed and motioniess.
 How does he do it? That is the query that has puzzled mankind for centuries and none of them has solved it. "Oh that I had ehe wings like a dove!" was xhe cry of a Psalmist and has been the cry of thousands in all ages of the world.
 
 themselves artificial wings, or to find some method of flying through the air. but they are little nearer a solution of ahe puzzle than they were in the early days of civilization. Men can make boats and ships which sail on the surface of the water, but they are not fishes nor do they have the motion of fishes. Just
 
 20 up in the air and move forward after q fashion, but they are not birds nor do they have the motion or qualities of the bird.
 Great hopes and predictions were build d on Professor Langleys efforts to solve 4fse problem. It was claimed that his machine was constructed on scientific as vvAli. as bird-like principles and that it would surely fly. It had acroplanes and sruides and rudders and various other at tachments which would make it go the way of an eagle in the air." but the bird fall into the Potomac and the bright homes founded on it fell to the ground. He built a bird, but 1t refused to fly.
 We have carefully. read the article in The Scientific American. scanned the writer's drawings and read his explana- lions, but are no wiser than before He aaA failed to explain the mystery of bird niglft, just as all others have failed and aa we fear they will continue to fail. If 4hAre is any man living who can tell Us how and why bird flies in any direction and ell directions, at any desired speed ana in all sorts of air currents we shal at least know more than We now do No one has yet done 1t.