Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1878 — Air Navigation. [ARTICLE]

Air Navigation.

Machines intended for propelling one’s self through the air are older than balloons. After the Montgolfier brothers, of France, made a successful ascension in a balloon formed of paper and inflated with heated air, inventive talent turned its attention to finding better materials for the covering and filling. The first was found in silk, rendered gas-tight, by means of varnish, and the second in hydrogen gas. As there were no very strong motives to tempt persons to make aerial voyages it is astonishing how much money has been expended in the construction of balloons, and how many fatal accidents have resulted from their use. Observations made in the use of balloons have been of considerable advantage to science, but in other matters they have been of little benefit to the world. They were employed in McClellan’s army for purposes of observation, and were productive of some good. During the investment of Paris they were employed to good purpose to the besieged inhabitants. Gambetta, then one of the chiefs of the Government, made his escape in one. During the siego there were sixtyfour ascensions. In several cases the Prussians fired at the balloons, but without effect. Sixty-two of the balloons made successful voyages. One floated to South Africa, where it was discovered several years afterward, and one was supposed to be lost at sea. The loss of Donaldson and Grimwood, who made an ascension from the lake shore, in this city, three years ago, operated to damp the ardor for aerial navigation in this country. In England, however, there is: great interest in the matter. The War Department supports a corps of balloon engineers, and provides them, not only with balloons, but with apparatus for inflating them and carriages for drawing them about. The iEronautical Society of Great Britain was formed over twelve years ago, and numbers among its members persons as distinguished as the Duke of Argyll and Earl Dufferin. It has a cabinet and library devoted to models of balloons, parachutes, and flying-machines and boats pertaining to the navigation of the air. At present it is devoting its attention to flying-machines and giving encouragement to inventors. The desire appears to be to construct a simple apparatus whereby a man may make flights at pleasure after the manner of “the birds of the air.” The members of the society seem to think that a balloon is too cumbrous and unwieldy to use in making ascensions, while a steamengine is not -a desirable thing to have on board a craft that is to sail in the air. They desire to make their pleasure trips over church spires and tree tops by means of an apparatus as simple and as easily operated as a velocipede or a canoe. They do not expect to do away with muscular exertion. Indeed, they do not desire to, as physical strength and endurance are things the English gentleman holds in high esteem and wishes to encourage by education and practice. The prospects of success for a flying-machine are not encouraging, nor does there seem to be any very great necessity for navigating in the air. Still, an air-carriage may be invented, and a useful as well as a pleasurable employment Vie found for it. —Chicago Times.