Aerial Navigation.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2000, 2 May 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Aerial Navigation.

Or some news it is commonly said that " It iB too good to be true ;" and of that saying one is reminded by the announcement in so serious a journal as the Times that the problem of aerial navigation has at length been solved, and that the surprising faot has been communicated to the French Academy of Sciences by M. Herve Mangon. It is explicitly stated that a method of steering balloons has been invented by a captain of engineers named Banard, who, in conjunction with a Captain Krebs, has been experimenting in a largo enclosure in the wood of Moudon. The difficulty to be overcome was the construction of an engine combining sufficient power with adequate lightness, and this, it is alleged, has been done ; the propeller of the balloon being set in motion by a machine composed of a series of accumulators providing a force of 10 horse power for several hours. It is further asserted that on the !)th instant a balloon ascent was made at Meudon in presence of a number of persons. The "aerostat" passed over Meudon and proceeded to Villcbon, where, to the astonishment of the spectators, " the balloon was seen to turn a semicircle, and return to its starting point in the teeth of a slight breeze. The balloon went and returned ex- | actly to the spots fixed upon beforehand." If this statement be true (and the Balloon Society of Great Britain will lose no time, I should say, in sifting the matter), the greatest of social, and it may be political, revolutions ia at hand. The aeoret of aerial navigation could not long be kept ; and every nation would be able to participate in the all but exaot fulfilment of Dr. Erasmus Darwin's propheoy :—

Soon shall thine arm, undaunted Stream, afar D;ag the slow bargn, or drive the rapid car; Or on wide waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the realms of air.

Monsemvor CAr-EL has been giving England the benefit of hU ideas on language as a study. He says : "It I were called upon to define an educated man, I should say it was the man who knows his own language best. The fundamental law of English elocution is to pronounco the vowels well, and let the consonants take care of themselves. The rule should be reversed, and should be : Pronounce carefully your consonants, and let the vowelu take care of themselves. Besides this mechanical knowledge of the language, one must know the use of words. Half the prejudices of mankind and more than half its follies would disappear if men would thoroughly understand the words they use."