A History of Aeronautics | Page 4

in the records of practically every race, shows that this
form of transit was a dream of many peoples--man always wanted to
fly, and imagined means of flight.
In this age of steel, a very great part of the inventive genius of man has
gone into devices intended to facilitate transport, both of men and
goods, and the growth of civilisation is in reality the facilitation of

transit, improvement of the means of communication. He was a genius
who first hoisted a sail on a boat and saved the labour of rowing;
equally, he who first harnessed ox or dog or horse to a wheeled vehicle
was a genius--and these looked up, as men have looked up from the
earliest days of all, seeing that the birds had solved the problem of
transit far more completely than themselves. So it must have appeared,
and there is no age in history in which some dreamers have not
dreamed of the conquest of the air; if the caveman had left records,
these would without doubt have showed that he, too, dreamed this
dream. His main aim, probably, was self-preservation; when the
dinosaur looked round the corner, the prehistoric bird got out of the
way in his usual manner, and prehistoric manÄ such of him as
succeeded in getting out of the way after his fashion--naturally envied
the bird, and concluded that as lord of creation in a doubtful sort of way
he ought to have equal facilities. He may have tried, like Simon the
Magician, and other early experimenters, to improvise those facilities;
assuming that he did, there is the groundwork of much of the older
legend with regard to men who flew, since, when history began,
legends would be fashioned out of attempts and even the desire to fly,
these being compounded of some small ingredient of truth and much
exaggeration and addition.
In a study of the first beginnings of the art, it is worth while to mention
even the earliest of the legends and traditions, for they show the trend
of men's minds and the constancy of this dream that has become reality
in the twentieth century. In one of the oldest records of the world, the
Indian classic Mahabarata, it is stated that 'Krishna's enemies sought
the aid of the demons, who built an aerial chariot with sides of iron and
clad with wings. The chariot was driven through the sky till it stood
over Dwarakha, where Krishna's followers dwelt, and from there it
hurled down upon the city missiles that destroyed everything on which
they fell.' Here is pure fable, not legend, but still a curious forecast of
twentieth century bombs from a rigid dirigible. It is to be noted in this
case, as in many, that the power to fly was an attribute of evil, not of
good--it was the demons who built the chariot, even as at
Friedrichshavn. Mediaeval legend in nearly every cas,attributes flight
to the aid of evil powers, and incites well-disposed people to stick to
the solid earth--though, curiously enough, the pioneers of medieval

times were very largely of priestly type, as witness the monk of
Malmesbury.
The legends of the dawn of history, however, distribute the power of
flight with less of prejudice. Egyptian sculpture gives the figure of
winged men; the British Museum has made the winged Assyrian bulls
familiar to many, and both the cuneiform records of Assyria and the
hieroglyphs of Egypt record flights that in reality were never made. The
desire fathered the story then, and until Clement Ader either hopped
with his Avion, as is persisted by his critics, or flew, as is claimed by
his friends.
While the origin of many legends is questionable, that of others is easy
enough to trace, though not to prove. Among the credulous the
significance of the name of a people of Asia Minor, the Capnobates,
'those who travel by smoke,' gave rise to the assertion that Montgolfier
was not first in the field--or rather in the air--since surely this people
must have been responsible for the first hot-air balloons. Far less
questionable is the legend of Icarus, for here it is possible to trace a
foundation of fact in the story. Such a tribe as Daedalus governed could
have had hardly any knowledge of the rudiments of science, and even
their ruler, seeing how easy it is for birds to sustain themselves in the
air, might be excused for believing that he, if he fashioned wings for
himself, could use them. In that belief, let it be assumed, Daedalus
made his wings; the boy, Icarus, learning that his father had determined
on an attempt at flight secured the wings and fastened them to his own
shoulders. A cliff seemed the likeliest place for a 'take-off,' and Icarus
leaped from the