Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1884 — In the Upper Air. [ARTICLE]

In the Upper Air.

Two Frenchmen claim to have solved the problem of aerial navigation. They have spent many long years in perfecting their machine. It has been demonstrated that birds and insects can travel through the air by aid of one of twelve different means of locomotion. These Frenchmen have taken for the base of their invention a hint from the insect world. We all know' that a thin sheet of paper, if it could be kept straight, or if bent downward at the corners and edges, would float for a long period in mid-air. It is tlfis principle of an extended surface,-very flexible but under control, which is to be the guiding power of this very ingeni--OU3 flying machine. It operates by setting in motion a set of rotatory wings, something like those which are used to raise the little imitation butterflies commonly sold at bazaars and fancy fairs, or as children’s toys. The principle of their action is that of scattering the air, and creating avacuum, into which the air behind rushes, carrying with it any solid body which may be floating with it. The apparatus is described as consisting of a long shaped spheroidal balloon, measuring about twelve feet from end to end and three feet m diameter. At pach end is arranged a projecting axis, having arms like a windmill, with small cards fixed to them as sails. When one of them is set in motion, the whole machine moves forward in the direction of the axis so working, and continues to do so as long as the sails revolve. By stopping these sails, and starting those at the other end a contrary movement is imparted, and so also with another similar apparatus affixed to the lower side of the balloon and intended to make it descend toward the ground. There is also an arrangement of screens on each side of the several sets of sails, by which the course can be made to deviate to the right or the left. There is no reason to doubt but that the air will be navigated successfully before the close of this century, and man will eventually discover there is not only one but many ways of sailing securely through the open air.— Demorest’s Monthly.