be the favourite plan of the artists and
philosophers of that day. If we credit the accounts
of some of these experiments, it would seem
that considerable progress was made that way.
The individuals who used the wings could skim
over the surface of the earth with a great deal
of ease and celerity. This was accomplished
by the combined faculties of running and flying.
It is stated that, by an alternately continued
motion of the wings against the air, and the
feet against the ground, they were enabled to
move along with a striding motion, and with
incredible speed."

Kites have been used to assist ascension.
Experiments have proved that a surface of only
fifty-five square feet can support a weight of
ninety-two and a quarter pounds. The author
of the History of the Char-volant, or kite
carriage, says: "These buoyant sails, possessing
immense power, will, as we have before
remarked, serve for floating observatories....
Elevated in the air, a single sentinel, with a
perspective, could watch and report the advance
of the most powerful forces, while yet at a
great distance. He could mark their line of
march, the composition of their force, and their
general strength, long before he could be seen
by the enemy.... Nor was less progress
made in the experimental department, when
large weights were required to be raised or
transposed. While on this subject we must not
omit to observe, that the first person who soared
aloft in the air by this invention was a lady,
whose courage would not be denied this test of
its strength. An arm-chair was brought on the
ground, then lowering the cordage of the kite
by slackening the lower brace, the chair was
firmly lashed to the main line, and the lady took
her seat. The main brace being hauled taut,
the huge buoyant sail rose aloft with its fair
burden, continuing to ascend to the height of
a hundred yards. On descending, she
expressed herself much pleased with the easy
motion of the kite, and the delightful prospect
she had enjoyed. Soon after this, another
experiment of a similar nature took place, when
the inventor's son successfully carried out a
design not less safe than bold, that of scaling, by
this powerful aërial machine, the brow of a cliff
two hundred feet in perpendicular height.
Here, after safely landing, he again took his
seat in a chair expressly prepared for the
purpose, and, detaching the swivel-line which kept
it at its elevation, glided gently down the
cordage to the hand of the director. The
buoyant sail employed on this occasion was
thirty feet in height, with a proportionate spread
of canvas. The rise of the machine was most
majestic, and nothing could surpass the steadiness
with which it was manœuvred, the certainty
with which it answered the action of the
braces, and the ease with which its power was
lessened or increased.... Subsequently to
this, an experiment of a very bold and novel
character was made upon an extensive down,
where a waggon with a considerable load was
drawn along, whilst this huge machine at the
same time carried an observer aloft in the air,
realising almost the romance of flying."

Volumes upon volumes might be filled with
descriptions of unsuccessful flying machines.
The council of the Aëronautical Society are
deluged with suggestions, plans, and specifications,
and "secret inventions certain of success
upon receipt of funds." What I wish to record
in the briefest possible way are the partial
successes. Agreeing cordially with the pawky
Scot, who said, "Next to knowing what will do,
it is well to know what will not do;" and with
the "'cute" Yankee, that "there is only one
thing beats trying, that's doing," I have
prescribed for myself the task of saying only how
nature does it, leaving to others the recording
of the ways of not doing it. Before leaving the
kite carriages, I may mention that the Duke
of Sutherland will give a hundred pounds to
anybody who shall fly up to the roof of Stafford
House.

A hundred years ago, Dr. Black, the
professor of chemistry in the University of
Edinburgh, exhibited the first balloon, a large skin
bag full of hydrogen gas, the very gas which
most likely gives their buoyancy to the birds
and the bats. The most fatal accidents seem
to have been caused by machines embodying
sound principles in untried and unsuitable
forms. The Montgolfier and Tytler balloon
was a contrivance for filling a large bag with
smoke from a brazier, being pulled up,
fireplace, fuel, and all, by the smoke. The Black
and Charles balloon was a sack full of hydrogen
gas; and this is the balloon which, has become,
in our day, Glaisher's sky observatory. Rosier,
wishing to be able to regulate his specific
gravity by making gas, combined the two
balloons, the one of which set fire to the other,
and he fell down and was killed. This power of
heating their gases, the flying animals, as I have
shown, possess, and the air sailors will in turn
have to obtain it. Rosier's object must be
attained and his fate avoided. A Cocking
parachute might be tried, with tubes of india-
rubber or gutta-percha, or with bladders,
instead of a material so unsuitable as tin.
Cracked tin may one day justify the opinion
of Mr. Green, who took poor Cocking up
attached to the Nassau balloon, that his death
was not a mad freak, but was a sad accident.

Nineteen years after Black's balloon had
been exhibited in Edinburgh, a Swede made a
dish of the most beautiful fruits, which were
brought in as dessert at the banquets of great
personages. Whilst the guests were still admiring
the fruits, and probably desiring to partake
of them, they were seen to rise out of the
splendid dishes which contained them, and float
away in the air. The French Court having been
enchanted with these toys, it was explained to
the personages who held the purse-strings of
the nation, that nothing but money was wanted
to enable two ingenious brothers of the name
of Montgolfier to rise up hanging from balloons
and float away as the apples and oranges had
done. In 1782, the servants of the royal sports