Lecture on Artificial Flight Given by Request at the Academy of Natural Sciences
9781465513380
272 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
SAILING IN THE AIR. I.--INTRODUCTION. Gentlemen of the Academy: The problem of artificial flight is of such great importance to civilization; so interesting and fascinating, not only to the student, but to every one; and it allows us to indulge in such a wide field for speculation as to the great changes which will be wrought by the practical solution of it in the social, political and commercial world, that I must beg of you to consider only my good intentions in appearing before you, and pardon my shortcomings as a lecturer. It is my first attempt, and is simply undertaken to bring the subject more understandingly before the public, that they may assist, morally, and pecuniarily, the several inventors who are wrestling with it more or less successfully--some rather less. If only one inventor in a hundred should meet with flattering results, the attention bestowed upon all will be repaid a thousand fold by that one's success. The idea of sailing through the air in a flying machine is not new, nor such an absurd one as is generally supposed; and it is indeed important to investigate and lay it before the public more directly than has been done heretofore through the medium of great, musty and long-winded volumes. If found to seem practicable and feasible, it is for you, gentlemen, to see that the future great State of California shall also be ahead in this--one of the greatest and most important inventions of the age--as she is, and has been in many Other things before. The subject has really been taken hold of in a thorough and scientific manner only the last few years; but with such earnestness and scientific knowledge and intelligence, not only by the foremost and principal society for the advancement of the art--the Aeronautic Society of Great Britain--to whom, really, the most credit must fall--but in every civilized country; and so much has been done already to prove, not only the possibility but the absolute certainty of an early practical solution of the problem, that soon we will see the air traversed in all directions, by aspiring man. Many seeming impossibilities of the present, need only time and effort to become realities in the near future
