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CHAPTER II.
ОглавлениеATTEMPTS IN ANCIENT TIMES TO FLY IN THE AIR.
Before contemplating the sudden conquest of the aerial kingdom, as accomplished and proclaimed at the end of the last century, it is at once curious and instructive to cast a glance backward, and to examine, by the glimmering of ancient traditions, the attempts which have been made or imagined by man to enfranchise himself from the attraction of the earth.
The greater number of the arts and sciences can be traced along a chronological ladder of great length: some, indeed, "lose themselves in the night of time." The accomplishment of raising oneself in the air, however, had no actual professors in antiquity, and the discovery of Montgolfier seems to have come into the world, so to speak, spontaneously. By this it is to be understood that, unlike Copernicus and Columbus, Montgolfier could not read in history of any similar discovery, containing the germ of his own feat. At least, we have no proof that the ancient nations practised the art of aerial navigation to any extent whatever. The attempts which we are about to cite do not strictly belong to the history of aerostatics.
Classic mythology tells us of Dædalus, who, escaping with his son Icarus from the anger of Minos, in the Isle of Crete, saved himself from the immediate evil by the aid of wings, which he made for himself and his son, and by means of which they were enabled to fly in the air. The wings, it appears, were soldered with wax, and Icarus, flying too high, was struck by a ray of the sun, which melted the wax. The youth fell into the sea, which from him derived its name of Icarian. It is possible that this fable only symbolisms the introduction of sails in navigation.
Coming down through ancient history, we note a certain Archytas, of Tarentum, who, in the fourth century B.C., is said to have launched into the air the first "flying stag," and who, according to the Greek writers, "made a pigeon of wood, which flew, but which could not raise itself again after having fallen." Its flight, it is said, "was accomplished by means of a mechanical contrivance, by the vibrations of which it was sustained in the air."
In the year 66 A.D., in the time of Nero, Simon, the magician—who called himself "the mechanician"—made certain experiments at Rome of flying at a certain height. In the eyes of the early Christians this power was attributed to the devil, and St. Peter, the namesake of this flying man, is said to have prayed fervently while Simon was amusing himself in space. It was possibly in answer to his prayers that the magician failed in his flight, fell upon the Forum, and broke his neck on the spot.
From the summit of the tower of the hippodrome at Constantinople, a certain Saracen met the same fate as Simon, in the reign of the Emperor Comnenus. His experiments were conducted on the principle of the inclined plane. He descended in an oblique course, using the resistance of the air as a support. His robe, very long and very large, and of which the flaps were extended on an osier frame, preserved him from suddenly falling.
The inclined plane probably suggested to Milton the flight of the angel Uriel, in "Paradise Lost," who descended in the morning from heaven to earth upon a ray of the sun, and ascended in the evening from earth to heaven by the same means. But we cannot quote here the fancies of pure imagination, and we will not speak of Medeus the magician, of the enchantress Armida, of the witches of the Brocken, of the hippogriff of Zephyrus with the rosy wings, or of the diabolical inventions of the middle ages, for many of which the stake was the only reward.
Roger Bacon, in the thirteenth century, inaugurated a more scientific era. In his "Treaty of the Admirable Power of Art and Nature," he puts forth the idea that it is possible "to make flying-machines in which the man, being seated or suspended in the middle, might turn some winch or crank, which would put in motion a suit of wings made to strike the air like those of a bird." In the same treatise he sketches a flying-machine, to which that of Blanchard, who lived in the eighteenth century, bears a certain resemblance. The monk, Roger Bacon, was worthy of entering the temple of fame before his great namesake the Lord Chancellor, who in the seventeenth century inaugurated the era of experimental science.
Jean Baptiste Dante, a mathematician of Perugia, who lived in the latter part of the fifteenth century, constructed artificial wings, by means of which, when applied to thin bodies, men might raise themselves off the ground into the air. It is recorded that on many occasions he experimented with his wings on the Lake Thrasymenus. These experiments, however, had a sad end. At a fête, given for the celebration of the marriage of Bartholomew d'Alvani, Dante, who must not be confounded with the poet, whose flights were of quite another kind—offered to exhibit the wonder of his wings to the people of Perugia. He managed to raise himself to a great height, and flew above the square; but the iron with which he moved one of his wings having been bent, he fell upon the church of the Virgin, and broke his thigh.
A similar accident befell a learned English Benedictine Oliver of Malmesbury. This ecclesiastic was considered gifted with the power of foretelling events; but, like other similarly circumstanced, he does not seem to have beer able to divine the fate which awaited himself. He constructed wings after the model of those which according to Ovid, Dædalus made use of. These he attached to his arms and his feet, and, thus furnished, he threw himself from the height of a tower. But the wings bore him up for little more than a distance of 120 paces. He fell at the foot of the tower, broke his legs, and from that moment led a languishing life. He consoled himself, however, in his misfortune by saying that his attempt must certainly have succeeded had he only provided himself with a tail.
Before going further, let us take notice that the seventeenth century is, par excellence, the century distinguished for narratives of imaginary travels. It was then that astronomy opened up its world of marvels. The knowledge of observers was vastly increased, and from that time it became possible to distinguish the surface of the moon and of other celestial bodies. Thus a new world, as it were, was revealed for human thought and speculation. We learned that our globe was not, as we had supposed, the centre of the universe. It was assigned its place far from that centre, and was known to be no more than a mere atom, lost amid an incalculable number of other globes. The revelations of the telescope proved that those who formerly were considered wise actually knew nothing. Quickly following these discoveries, extraordinary narratives of excursions through space began to be given to the world. Those scientific romances were simply wild exaggerations, based upon the thinnest foundation of scientific facts. In order, however, to describe a journey among the stars, it was necessary to invent some mode of locomotion in these distant regions. In former times Lucian had been content with a ship which ascended to the rising moon upon a waterspout; but it was now necessary to improve upon this very primitive mode, as people began to know something more of the forces of nature. One of the first of these travellers in imagination to the moon in modern times was Godwin (1638), and his plan was more ingenious than that of Lucian. He trained a great number of the wild swans of St. Helena to fly constantly upward toward a white object, and, having succeeded in thus training them, one fine night he threw himself off the Peak of Teneriffe, poised upon a piece of board, which was borne upward to the white moon by a great team of the gigantic swans. At the end of twelve days he arrived, according to his story, at his destination. A little later another writer of this peculiar kind of fiction, Wilkins, an Englishman, professed to have made the same ascent, borne up by an eagle. Alexandre Dumas, who recently wrote a short romance upon the same subject, only made a translation of an English work by that author. Wilkins' work is entitled, "The Discovery of a New World." One chapter of the book bears the title, "That 'tis possible for some of our posterity to find out a conveyance to this other world; and, if there be inhabitants there, to have commerce with them." It is thus that the right reverend philosopher reasons:—
"If it be here inquired what means there may be conjectured for our ascending beyond the sphere of the earth's mathematical vigour, I answer.—1. 'Tis not possible that a man may be able to fly by the application of wings to his own body, as angels are pictured, as Mercury and Daedalus are feigned, and as hath been attempted by divers, particularly by a Turk in Constantinople, a Busbequius relates. 2. If there be such a great duck in Madagascar as Marcus Polus, the Venetian, mentions, the feathers of whose wings are twelve feet long, which can scoop up a horse and his rider, or an elephant, as our kites do a mouse; why, then, 'tis but teaching one of these to carry a man, and he may ride up thither, as Ganymede does upon an eagle. 3. Or if neither of these ways will serve yet I do seriously, and upon good grounds, affirm it is possible to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit and give such a motion to it as shall convey him through the air. And this, perhaps, might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum, and commodities for traffic. It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see that a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat. This engine may be contrived from the same principles by which Archytas made a wooden dove, and Regiomontanus a wooden eagle. I conceive it were no difficult matter (if a man had leisure) to show more particularly the means of composing it. The perfecting of such an invention would be of such excellent use that it were enough, not only to make a man famous but the age wherein he lives. For, besides the strange discoveries that it might occasion in this other world, it would be also of inconceivable advantage for travelling, above any other conveyance that is now in use. So that, notwithstanding all these seeming impossibilities, it is likely enough that there may be a means invented of journeying to the moon; and how happy shall they be that are first successful in this attempt!"
Afterwards comes Cyrano of Bergerac, who promulgates five different means of flying in the air. First, by means of phials filled with dew, which would attract and cause to mount up. Secondly, by a great bird made of wood, the wings of which should be kept in motion. Thirdly, by rockets, which, going off successively, would drive up the balloon by the force of projection. Fourthly, by an octahedron of glass, heated by the sun, and of which the lower part should be allowed to penetrate the dense cold air, which, pressing up against the rarefied hot air, would raise the balloon. Fifthly, by a car of iron and a ball of magnetised iron, which the aeronaut would keep throwing up in the air, and which would attract and draw up the balloon. The wiseacre who invented these modes of flying in the air seems, some would say, to have been more in want of very strict confinement on the earth than of the freedom of the skies.
In 1670 Francis Lana constructed the flying-machine shown on the next page. The specific lightness of heated air and of hydrogen gas not having yet been discovered, his only idea for making his globes rise was to take all the air out of them. But even supposing that the globes were thus rendered light enough to rise, they must inevitably have collapsed under the atmospheric pressure.
As for the idea of making use of a sail to direct the balloon, as one directs a vessel, that also was a delusion; for the whole machine, globes and sails, being freely thrown into the air, would infallibly follow the direction of the wind, whatever that might be. When a ship lies in the sea, and its sails are inflated with the wind, we must remember that there are two forces in operation—the active force of the wind and the passive force of the resistance of the water; and in working these forces the one against the other, the
Lana's Flying-machine
sailor can turn within a point of any direction he pleases. But when we are subjected wholly to a single force, and have no point of support by the use of which to turn that force to our own purposes, as is the case with the aeronaut, we are entirely at the mercy of that force, and must obey it.
After the flying-machine of Lana there was constructed by Galien (who, like the former, was an ecclesiastic) an air-boat, less chimerical in its form, looked at in view of the conditions of aerial navigation, but much more singular. Galien describes his air-boat, in 1755, in his little work entitled, "The Art of Sailing in the Air." His project was a most extraordinary one, and its boldness is only equalled by the seriousness of the narrative. According to him, the atmosphere is divided into two horizontal layers, the upper of which is much lighter than the lower. "But," says Galien, "a ship keeps its place in the water because it is full of air, and air is much lighter than water. Suppose, then, that there was the same difference of weight between the upper and the lower layer of air as there is between the lower stratum and water; and suppose, also, a boat which rested upon the lower layer of air, with its bulk in the lighter upper layer—like a ship which has its keel in the water but its bulk in the air—the same thing would happen with the air-ship as with the water-ship—it would float in the denser layer of air."
Galien adds that in the region of hail there was in the air a separation into two layers, the weights of which respectively are as 1 to 2. "Then," says he, "in placing an air-boat in the region of hail, with its sides rising eighty-three fathoms into the upper region, which is much more light, one could sail perfectly."
But how to get this enormous air-boat up to the region of hail? This is a minor detail, respecting which Galien is not clear.
From the labours of Lana and Galien, with their impossible flying machines, the inventor of the balloon could derive no benefit whatever; nor is his fame to be in the least diminished because many had laboured in the same field before him. Nor can the story of the ovoador, or flying man, a legend very confused, and of which there are many versions, have given to Montgolfier any valuable hints. It appears that a certain Laurent de Guzman, a monk of Rio Janeiro, performed at Lisbon before the king, John V.,
Laurent de Guzman's Balloon.
raising himself in a balloon to a considerable height. Other versions of the story give a different date, and assign the pretended ascent to 1709. The above engraving, extracted from the "Bibliothèque de la Rue de Richelieu," is an exact copy of Guzman's supposed balloon.
In 1678 a mechanician of Salle, in Maine, named Besnier invented a flying-machine. The machine consisted of four great wings, or paddles, mounted at the extremities of levers, which rested on the shoulders of the man who guided it, and who could move them alternately by means of his hands and feet. The following description of the machine is given in the Journal de Paris by an eye-witness:—
"The 'wings' are oblong frames, covered with taffeta, and attached to the ends of two rods, adjusted on the shoulders. The wings work up and down. Those in front are worked by the hands; those behind by the feet, which are connected with the ends of the rods by strings. The movements were such that when the right hand made the right wing descend in front, the left foot made the left wing descend behind; and in like manner the left hand in front and the right foot behind acted together simultaneously. This diagonal action appeared very well contrived; it was the action of most quadrupeds as well as of man when walking; but the contrivance, like others of the same kind, failed in not being fitted with gearing to enable the air traveller to proceed in any other direction than that in which the wind blew him. The inventor first flew down from a stool, then from a table, afterwards from a window, and finally from a garret, from which he passed above the houses in the neighbourhood, and then, moderating the working of his machine, he descended slowly to the earth."
Tradition records that under Louis XIV. a certain rope-dancer, named Alard, announced that on a certain day he would perform the feat of flying in the air. We have no description of his wings. It is recorded, however, that he set out on his adventurous flight; but he had not calculated all the necessities of the case, and, falling to the ground, he was dangerously hurt.
Leonardo da Vinci might have known the art of flying in the air, and might even have practiced it. A statement to this effect, at least, is found in several historians. We have, however, no direct proof of the fact.
The Abbé Deforges, of Etampes, announced in the journals in 1772 that he would perform the great feat. On the appointed day multitudes of the curious flocked to Etampes. The abbé's machine was a sort of gondola, seven feet long and about two feet deep. Gondola, conductor, and baggage weighed in all 213 pounds. The pious man believed that he had provided against everything. Neither tempest nor rain should mar his flight, and there was no chance of his being upset; whilst the machine, he had decided, was to go at the rate of thirty leagues an hour.
The great day came, and the abbé, entering his air-boat amidst the applause of the spectators, began to work the wings with which it was provided with great rapidity. "But," says one who witnessed the feat, "the more he worked, the more his machine cleaved to the earth, as if it were part and parcel of it."
Retif de la Brétonne, in his work upon this subject, gives the accompanying picture of a flying man, furnished with very artistically designed wings, fitting exactly to the shoulders, and carrying a basket of provisions, suspended from his waist; and the frontispiece of the "Philosophie sans Prétention" is a view of a flying-machine. In the midst of a frame of light wood sits the operator, steadying himself with one hand, and with the other turning a cremaillère, which appears to give a very quick rotatory movement to two glass globes revolving upon a vertical axis. The friction of the globes is supposed to develop electricity to which his power of ascending is ascribed.
To wings, however, aerial adventurers mostly adhered. The Marquis de Racqueville flew from a window of his
THE FLYING MAN.
hotel, on the banks of the Seine, and fell into a boat full of washerwomen on the river. All these unfortunate attempts were lampooned, burlesqued on the stage, and pursued with the mockery of the public.
Up to this time, therefore, the efforts of man to conquer the air had miscarried. They were conducted on a wrong principle, the machinery employed being heavier than the air itself. But, even before the time of Montgolfier, the principles of aerostation began to be recognised, though nothing was actually done in the way of acting upon them. Thus, in 1767, Professor Black, of Edinburgh, announced in his class that a vessel, filled with hydrogen, would rise naturally in the air; but he never made the experiment, regarding the fact as capable of being employed only for amusement. Finally, Cavallo, in 1782, communicated to the Royal Society of London the experiments he had made, and which consisted in filling soap-bubbles with hydrogen. The bubbles rose in the atmosphere, the gas which filled them being lighter than air.
