The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1906-03-14
car in which James Wilcox went up


car in which James Wilcox went up
1000 feet.
Between 1912 and 1857 Charles
Green, an Englishman, made some l.
400 ascents. Three times he tried 1t
over the sea, and fell in twice. The
most remarkable thing about his car
eer was that, in spite of all this, he
lived to be eighty-five, and then died
of old age. In 1885 a Frenchman,
Blanchard, and an American, DR.. JEFF
fers, first crossed the English channel.
The highest ascent on record is one
of over seven miles, made from VOL
verhampton by James Glaisher and
Henry Coxwell. In 1850 Julien, a
French clockmaker, turned out the
first balloon of the modern cigar
shaped type. Two years later motive
power was first applied by Henry Gif-
ford, who made an ascension Of 5000
feet with steam. The real dirigible
balloon came with Santos Dumont's
| experiments in 1898.
The attempts of men to initiate bird
fight antedate the invention of the
| balloon. That celebrated all-round
genius of the fifteenth and sixteenth
| centuries, Leonardo da Vinci, made
studies in this direction, but never
put them to practical test. The first
aerodrome was patented by Henson in
1912, but never, in fact, constructed.
| The most thorough and extensive ex-
periments In wings were made by Ii
lienthal of Berlin, who, between 1891
and 1896, made some 1000 short flights.
Lilienthal was more of naturalist
| than an engineer. He met with some
success in his way, but the project was
chimerical, 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 track of
eight-foot gauge. At slight elevation
was another track of thirty-foot gauge,
to hold 1t from rising more than so
far. He used steam as motive pow
er, and found that at thirty-six miles
an hour all the weight was sustained
by the air. Professor Langley pro-
duced flying machine in 1896 and
another in 1903, but neither met with
the success hoped for. Herring made
some valuable experiments in the bal
ance of flying machines-the most diff
ficult point in the whole problem. The
shape which he adopted of two slight
ly convex planes as supporting sur
faces has practically been preserved
in the more recent machines of the
Wright Brothers.
The Wright brothers, Wilbur and
Orville, worked on the flying machine
during the years 1900, 1901, 1902 and
1903, with the result that it passed
from possibility to fact Their first
effort was to build something which
would not only fly but would be strong
enough SO that it would not be wreck
ed when it came down. They simpli-
fed construction to the greatest pos
sible extent, and as timber used the
best quality of spruce, getting it from
special manufacturer, and then
throwing out two-third of what he
sent. Before installing a motor they
made sure of their machine by short
flights without In their best trial, at
Kitty Hawk, N. c., the machine, with
one man and considerable ballast was
up thirty-eight minutes and travelled
25 miles, coming down only because
the gasolene was gone. 1t had been
planned to stay up an hour but the
motor was allowed to run for a quar-
ter of an hour before starting with the
intention of refilling the tank at the
last moment, but this was neglected.
New York Post.