THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9096, 23 May 1908, Page 4

THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR.

From early antiquity man has dreamed of leaving the earth and of travelling whither he may list in the air. At a moment when the realisation of that ambition seems in sight it is interesting to recall some of the most noteworthy early attempts which were made to solve the problem of flying. From the legendary performance of Icarus till comparatively recent years almost all the inventors took the flapping of the wings of birds as their model. It was only natural that the flight of birds should serve as the principle applied in the machines heavier than the air and yet destined to travel in it, but it is not the Happing movement but the soaring with the outstretched motionless wings which has furnished the example for the modern aeroplanes. Apart from that of Icarus, one of the first attempts to conquer the ethereal element related in history was made in the fourth century before the Christian era by Arehytas of Tarcntum, a friend of Plato. He is credited with having made the first kite and according to Greek authors, he constructed a wooden dove which flew, but which could not rise again after it had once fallen to the ground. It supported itself in the air by an internal mechanism producing vibrations of the wings. In A.D. 66 Simon the Magician, o- Mechanician, as he was also called, made (lights of a certain height at Rome. The Christians of that epoch attributed his power to the Demon, and when he fell and broke his neck on the Forum his death was beiieved to have been brought about by the prayers of St. Peter during the flight. Having taken the top of the tower of the Hippodrome in Constantinople as his starting point, a Saracen during the reign of Emperor Emmanuel Comnenus suffered the same fate as Simon. His experiments were, however, based on the principle of inclined planes. In the thirteenth century the English-Franciscan monk, Roger Bacon, inaugurated a more scientific era. In his "Treatise on the Admirable Power of Art and Nature," he expounded the idea that a flying machine could be made in which the man, sitting on it or suspended from its centre, would turn a handle giving an up and down movement to the wings. Towards the end of the fifteenth century Jean Bap tiste Dante, the Perouse mathematician constructed artificial wings, by the aid of which he is said to have risen in the air, and to have made severai flights over Lake Trasimeme. History, however, relates that he broke his leg when he tried to perform in public at a fair in his native town of Perouse.