Up in the Clouds | Page 3

no impossibility in
man being able to fly apparently, though not really, like a bird. He did
not hold that man could ever fly as high, or as far, or as fast, or in any
degree as easily, as a bird. All that he ventured to say was, that he

might perhaps fly somewhat like one.
As the plan of this philosopher is rather curious, we shall detail it.
It is well known that balloons, filled with appropriate gas, will rise. Big
balloons and little ones are equally uppish in their tendencies. It is also
known that rotundity of form is not essential to the successful rising of
a balloon. "Well, then," says this philosopher, "what is to prevent a man
making two balloons, flattish, and in the form of wings, which, instead
of flying away with him, as ordinary balloons would infallibly do,
should be so proportioned to his size and weight as that they would not
do more than raise him an inch or so off the ground, and so keep him
stotting and bobbing lightly about, something like the bright thin
india-rubber balls with which children are wont to play now-a-days?
"Having attained this position of, so to speak, readiness to fly, there is
nothing to prevent him from propelling himself gently along the surface
of the ground by means of fans, or, if you choose, small flexible cloth
wings attached to the hands and arms. The legs might also be brought
into play a little. It is obvious, however, that such wings would require
to be mounted only in calm weather, for a breeze of wind would
infallibly sweep the flyer off the face of the earth! We would only
observe, in conclusion, that, however ridiculous this method of flying
may appear in your eyes, this at least may be said in its favour, that
whereas all other plans that have been tried have signally failed, this
plan has never failed--never having been tried! We throw the idea
before a discriminating public, in the hope that some aspiring
enthusiast, with plenty of means and nerve, and no family to mourn his
loss, may one day prove, to the confusion of the incredulous, that our
plan is not a mere flight of imagination!"
When men began to find that wings refused in any circumstances to
waft them to the realms of ether, they set about inventing aerial
machines in which to ascend through the clouds and navigate the skies.
In the fourteenth century a glimmering of the true principles on which a
balloon could be constructed was entertained by Albert of Saxony, a
monk of the order of Saint Augustin, but he never carried his theories

into practice. His opinion was that, since fire is more attenuated than air,
and floats above the region of our atmosphere, all that was necessary
would be to enclose a portion of such ethereal substance in a light
hollow globe which would thus be raised to a certain height, and kept
suspended in the sky, and that by introducing a portion of air into the
globe it would be rendered heavier than before, and might thus be made
to descend. This was in fact the statement of the principles on which
fire-balloons were afterwards constructed and successfully sent up,
excepting that air heated by fire, instead of fire itself, was used.
Others who came after Albert of Saxony held the same theory, but they
all failed to reduce it to practice, and most of these men coupled with
their correct notions on the subject, the very erroneous idea that by
means of masts, sails, and a rudder, a balloon might be made to sail
through the air as a ship sails upon the sea. In this they seem to have
confounded two things which are dissimilar, namely, a vessel driven
through water, and a vessel floating in air.
The fallacy here may be easily pointed out. A ship is driven through
water by a body in motion, namely, wind, while its rudder is dragged
through a body comparatively at rest, namely, water; hence the rudder
slides against or is pushed against the water, and according as it is
turned to one side or the other, it is pushed to one side or the other, the
stern of the ship going along with it, and the bow, of course, making a
corresponding motion in the opposite direction. Thus the ship is turned
or "steered," but it is manifest that if the ship were at rest there would
be no pushing of the rudder by the water--no steering. On the other
hand, if, though the ship were in motion, the sea was also flowing at the
same rate with the wind, there would be no flowing of water past the
ship, the rudder would not