The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1906-04-28

feet, which rose 20 feet The year fol
lowing. using 4 Nontgo. fer balloon
/ Pilastre du RoEier went up 300 lee
/ with a rope attached. The first free
/ ascent was made on November - ot
the same year by du Rolier ana The
Marquis d Arlandes a Paris. I'll )
went UP 5000 feet descending ate!
twenty-five minutes five miles distant
benjamin t'ranaIiu Witnessing tia
feat. On December Is, l7>2. Ritten-
house and HoQhinson in this country
rugged seven hydrogen balloons to a
car in which James Wilcox Went un
1000 feet.
Between 1912 and 1S5- Charles
Green. an Eng!ishman. made some !. :
4Ub asrerts Three times he tried II
over the sea, and fell in twice The
most remarkable thing about his car
eer was that, in spite Of all this. lie
lived to be eighty-tive, and then died
OF old age. In 17S5 Frenchman
Blanchard, and an American, DR., JET
fers. first crossed the English channel
The highest ascent on record is one
Of over seven miles. made from VOL
northampton by James Glaisher and
Henry CoXWell In 1880 Julien. a
French clockmakCr, turned out the
first balloon of the modern cigar
shaped type Two years later motive
power was first applied by Henry Gift
ford, who made al ascension OF 5000
Cta j,i,, AL
balloon came with Santos Dumont's
experiments in 1898
The attempts of men to initiate bird
flight antedate the invention of the
balloon. That celebrated all-round
genius of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, Leonardo da Ninci made
studies in this direction. but never
put them to practical test. The first
aerOdrome was patented by Henson in
1917, but never. in fact. constructed
! he most thorough and extensive eX-
periments in wings were made By Ii
llenthal OF Berlin, who between 1871
and 1896, made some 1000 short flights
LllIenthal was more of a naturalist
than an engineer. He met with some
success in his way, but the project was
chlmerical. and he finally lost his life
IN the course of experiment.
The credit of constructing the first
plausible flying machine belongs to
Hiram Maxim. the American inventor.
although the work was done in Eng
land. He built his flying machine in
1894, and provided it with a track OF
cight-foot gauge. At slight elevation
was another track of thirty-foot gauge,
to hold 1t from rising more than SO
Tar. He used steam as a motive pow
err and found that at thirty-six miles
IN hour all the weight was sustained
by the air Professor Langley pro-
duced a flying machine in 1896 and /
another in 1903, but neither met with
the success hoped for. Herring made /
some valuable experiments in the bal /
lnce OF flying machines-the most diff 4
lcult point in the whole problem. The (
shape which he adopted of two slight ,
Y convex planes as supporting sur
aces has practically been preserved
n the more recent machines of the .
Wright Brothers.
The Wright brothers. Wilbur and .
jrNllle, worked or the flying machine
Turing the years 1900, 1901, 1902 and
9o3, with the result that il passed.
rom possibility u a fact Their first
fort was TO build something which
would not only tly but would be strong
'nOugh SO that it would not be wreck
d when it came down They simpli-
led construction to the greatest pos
lble extent, and as timber used the
'est quality OF spruce, getting ii from
special manufacturer. and then
hroWing out tWo-third of what he
ent Before installing a motor they
made sure of their machine by short
lights without In their best trial, at
Kitty Hawk. N. c.. the machine. with
me man and considerable ballast was
p thirty-eight minutes and travelled
) miles, coming down only because
he gasolene was gone. 1t had been
damned to stay up an hour but the
rotor was allowed to run for a quar-
err of an hour before starting with the
Intention of refillint the tank at the
asst moment, but this was neglected.
Jew York Post.