Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-04
DARIUS GREEN'S PROGENY.
Progress Made Toward the Navigation
of the Air.

From the New York Evening Post.
In one respect, at least, the development
of the art of flying by human. contrivances
has been unique General public interest
was not aroused in steamboats, until one
was able to propel itself; there was never
a public view of the telegraph until 1t was
so perfected that messages could be sent
by It'll and most other inventions, whether
small or great, have been given to the
world when they had been made workable,
and not before. But the progress toward
practicable flying apparatus has all been
made in the open. Inventors have, of
course, carried on their experiments with
the customary privacy, but as each one has
worked out only some small part of the
problem the public has been enabled to
watch substantially every STEP The Aero
CLUBS exhibition, which opens this even
ing, has thus one entirely novel aspect. 1T
is, in sense, an assembling, from all parts
OF the world, of the constituent elements
for an invention which has not yet been
made, namely, a machine that viii fly after
the fashion of a bird.
The steering of balloons was at first the
only problem that aeronauts considered
practical. According to the accepted physi-
cal formula for determining the sustaining
power of a column of air, a bird the size
of a duck would have had TO expend the
better part of a horsepower to keep Itself
off the ground, and to lift a man, let alone
an engine, by means of wings or planes,
appeared absolutely visionary. Only rural
''cranks of the Darius Green order Sc
riously tried the thing
Then came the series of experiments that
have not only exploded the old formula,
but showed 1t to be comparatively easy to
construct an engine that will lift its weight
against the air. Sir Hiram Maxim con-
structed large apparatus with wide sup
porting planes and rotary propellers which
could be started along ordinary rails. and
when II reached certain speed would rise
70 that Its wheels ran along the under side
Of anc cher set of rails placed above the
first. The assumption then was that IL
sucil machine were launched In spa
oious enough place 1t would fly, and the
difficulty OF alighting was the principal rea-
son why no one ventured to try it
ancing, which was then considered a sec
ondary matter. has since been realized to
be the crux OF the whole problem. Otto
Lilienthal who met his death in pursuit OF
his hobby, studied the art Of soaring from
height by means OF rigid wings, that were
elevated or depressed merely by the ball
ance of the operators body. Prof. Langley
several models that ''fiew." but it was too
erratic flight that wrecked his last crea-
ton, the t'Buzzard.' The success Of the
Wright hrothers IN controlling aeroplaues
has received much notice in the last two
years. 80 progress has been made in the
art of actual navigation as well as on the
purely mechanical SIDE
disciples on both sides Of the water have
brought the dirigible balloon to such perfec-
ton that 1t will run against a very light
breeze. and in still air can perform any
evolution. OF course, the eas-filsed airs1tp
IL Q fundamentally different thing nom =