The Dominion of the Air | Page 6

an ear to Science, or, like children,
followed only the Will-o'-the-Wisp floating above the quagmire which
held them fast. They ran after the stone that was to turn all to gold, or
the elixir that should conquer death, or the signs in the heavens that
should foretell their destinies; and the taint of this may be traced even
when the dark period that followed was clearing away. Four hundred
years after Roger's death, his illustrious namesake, Francis Bacon, was
formulating his Inductive Philosophy, and with complete cock-sureness
was teaching mankind all about everything. Let us look at some of his
utterances which may help to throw light on the way he regarded the
problem we are dealing with.
"It is reported," Francis Bacon writes, "that the Leucacians in ancient
time did use to precipitate a man from a high cliffe into the sea; tying
about him, with strings, at some distance, many great fowles; and
fixing unto his body divers feathers, spread, to breake the fall. Certainly
many birds of good wing (as Kites and the like) would beare up a good
weight as they flie. And spreading of feathers, thin and close, and in
great breadth, will likewise beare up a great weight, being even laid
without tilting upon the sides. The further extension of this experiment
of flying may be thought upon."
To say the least, this is hardly mechanical. But let us next follow the
philosopher into the domain of Physics. Referring to a strange assertion,
that "salt water will dissolve salt put into it in less time than fresh water
will dissolve it," he is at once ready with an explanation to fit the case.
"The salt," he says, "in the precedent water doth by similitude of
substance draw the salt new put in unto it." Again, in his finding, well
water is warmer in winter than summer, and "the cause is the
subterranean heat which shut close in (as in winter) is the more, but if it
perspire (as it doth in summer) it is the less." This was Bacon the Lord.
What a falling off--from the experimentalist's point of view--from

Bacon the Friar! We can fancy him watching a falcon poised
motionless in the sky, and reflecting on that problem which to this day
fairly puzzles our ablest scientists, settling the matter in a sentence:
"The cause is that feathers doe possess upward attractions." During four
hundred years preceding Lord Verulam philosophers would have flown
by aid of a broomstick. Bacon himself would have merely parried the
problem with a platitude!
At any rate, physicists, even in the brilliant seventeenth century, made
no material progress towards the navigation of the air, and thus
presently let the simple mechanic step in before them. Ere that century
had closed something in the nature of flight had been accomplished. It
is exceedingly hard to arrive at actual fact, but it seems pretty clear that
more than one individual, by starting from some eminence, could let
himself fall into space and waft himself away for some distance with
fair success and safety, It is stated that an English Monk, Elmerus, flew
the space of a furlong from a tower in Spain, a feat of the same kind
having been accomplished by another adventurer from the top of St.
Mark's at Venice.
In these attempts it would seem that the principle of the parachute was
to some extent at least brought into play. If also circumstantial accounts
can be credited, it would appear that a working model of a flying
machine was publicly exhibited by one John Muller before the Emperor
Charles V. at Nuremberg. Whatever exaggeration or embellishment
history may be guilty of it is pretty clear that some genuine attempts of
a practical and not unsuccessful nature had been made here and there,
and these prompted the flowery and visionary Bishop Wilkins already
quoted to predict confidently that the day was approaching when it
"would be as common for a man to call for his wings as for boots and
spurs."
We have now to return to the "tame goose" method, which found its
best and boldest exponent in a humble craftsman, by name Besnier,
living at Sable, about the year 1678. This mechanical genius was by
trade a locksmith, and must have been possessed of sufficient skill to
construct an efficient apparatus out of such materials as came to his

hand, of the simplest possible design. It may be compared to the
earliest type of bicycle, the ancient "bone shaker," now almost
forgotten save by those who, like the writer, had experience of it on its
first appearance. Besnier's wings, as it would appear, were essentially a
pair of double-bladed paddles and nothing more, roughly resembling
the double-paddle of an old-fashioned canoe, only the blades were large,
roughly