The Dominion of the Air | Page 4

made of flying papyrus to produce thunder. The
covering in order to ascend and float away should be long, graceful,
well filled with this fine powder; but to produce thunder the covering
should be short, thick, and half full."
Nor does this recipe stand alone. Take another sample, of which
chapter and verse are to be found in the MSS. of a Jesuit, Gaspard
Schott, of Palermo and Rome, born three hundred years ago:--
"The shells of hen-eggs, if properly filled and well secured against the
penetration of the air, and exposed to solar rays, will ascend to the skies
and sometimes suffer a natural change. And if the eggs of the larger
description of swans, or leather balls stitched with fine thongs, be filled
with nitre, the purest sulphur quicksilver, or kindred materials which
rarify by their caloric energy, and if they externally resemble pigeons,
they will easily be mistaken for flying animals."
Thus it would seem that, hunting back in history, there were three main
ideas on which would-be aeronauts of old exercised their ingenuity.
There was the last-mentioned method, which, by the way, Jules Verne
partly relies on when he takes his heroes to the moon, and which in its
highest practical development may be seen annually on the night of
"Brock's Benefit" at the Crystal Palace. There is, again, the "tame
goose" method, to which we must return presently; and, lastly, there is
a third method, to which, as also to the brilliant genius who conceived
it, we must without further delay be introduced. This may be called the

method of "a hollow globe."
Roger Bacon, Melchisedeck-fashion, came into existence at Ilchester in
1214 of parentage that is hard to trace. He was, however, a born
philosopher, and possessed of intellect and penetration that placed him
incalculably ahead of his generation. A man of marvellous insight and
research, he grasped, and as far as possible carried out, ideas which
dawned on other men only after centuries. Thus, many of his utterances
have been prophetic. It is probable that among his chemical discoveries
he re-invented gunpowder. It is certain that he divined the properties of
a lens, and diving deep into experimental and mechanical sciences,
actually foresaw the time when, in his own words, "men would
construct engines to traverse land and water with great speed and carry
with them persons and merchandise." Clearly in his dreams Bacon saw
the Atlantic not merely explored, but on its bosom the White Star liners
breaking records, contemptuous of its angriest seas. He saw, too, a
future Dumont circling in the air, and not only in a dead calm, but
holding his own with the feathered race. He tells his dream thus: "There
may be made some flying instrument so that a man sitting in the middle
of the instrument and turning some mechanism may put in motion
some artificial wings which may beat the air like a bird flying."
But he lived too long before his time. His ruin lay not only in his
superior genius, but also in his fearless outspokenness. He presently fell
under the ban of the Church, through which he lost alike his liberty and
the means of pursuing investigation. Had it been otherwise we may
fairly believe that the "admirable Doctor," as he was called, would have
been the first to show mankind how to navigate the air. His ideas are
perfectly easy to grasp. He conceived that the air was a true fluid, and
as such must have an upper limit, and it would be on this upper surface,
he supposed, as on the bosom of the ocean, that man would sail his
air-ship. A fine, bold guess truly. He would watch the cirrus clouds
sailing grandly ten miles above him on some stream that never
approached nearer. Up there, in his imagination, would be tossing the
waves of our ocean of air. Wait for some little better cylinders of
oxygen and an improved foot-warmer, and a future Coxwell will go
aloft and see; but as to an upper sea, it is truly there, and we may visit

and view its sun-lit tossing billows stretching out to a limitless horizon
at such times as the nether world is shrouded in densest gloom. Bacon's
method of reaching such an upper sea as he postulated was, as we have
said, by a hollow globe.
"The machine must be a large hollow globe, of copper or other suitable
metal, wrought extremely thin so as to have it as light as possible," and
"it must be filled with ethereal air or liquid fire." This was written in
the thirteenth century, and it is scarcely edifying to find four hundred
years after this the Jesuit Father Lana, who contrived to make his name
live in history as a theoriser in