Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1891 — How Do Big Birds Hung in the Air? [ARTICLE]

How Do Big Birds Hung in the Air?

I once had a very unusual opportunity of observing accurately the flight of buzzards from the summit of AeroCorinthus. As this unique natural fortress rises sheer from the plain, on the side toward Attica, to the height of 1,800 or 1,900, a group of these birds,, hanging above the surface, were thus brought in a line with the eye. I could! detect the minutest movement of the wings or tail. Again and again therewere considerable intervals of several seconds’ duration during which one bird and another would hang, with pinions horizontally outstretched, absolutely motionless, neither descending nor drifting, but as if his balance in the air was one of delicately-adjusted equiEoise. And- when, by a just-percepta-le movement of wings, he stirred again, it seemed rather f to be to change his position than that he needed any kind or degree of effort to maintain it. There was no wind. No doubt, of necessity, there was some upward current of air from the sun-wanned surface of the ground by which the birds profited; but if all sufficient to sustain them, actual gravity when in that position and so willing it (by which I mean nothing so absurd as that gravitation can be counteracted by the via vitce, but that by inflating its lungs and perhaps suspending its respiration, the bird may have the power* at will of lessening its comparative weight in the air) must be very near to that of the atmosphere around and underneath them.— Nature. We are indebted to Herodotus for the discovery of the pigmies, and secondly, to Andrew Battel, of Leigh. The Moffat and Livingstone introduced ns to the bushmen of South Africa. But the earliest knowledge of the pigmies of Central Equatorial Africa was given us by Sehweinfurth and Piaggia. who had traveled to Niam-Niam and Monbutta laud, which countries are situated bn the northern end of the Great Forest. - Too many papers keep in hot water ' with their ’steemed contemporaries.