THE CALIFORNIAN FLYING SHIP.
THE idea of flying through the air has always been so enticing to men, from the first days of Athens downwards, that we do not wonder at any amount of excitement created by a successful model of a flying machine. Least of all do we wonder that the people of San Francisco were so excited at the sight of one that they fairly " danced with delight." They are not very well posted up in the study of scientific conditions, they are full of belief in the future, and they have an unacknowledged conviction that if the great problem of mechanics is ever solved, it will be by some one of American birth and brain. How should a slow-witted European ever achieve that last triumph in the art of getting-on quickly, though one did by some unintelligible accident, some mon- strous fluke, discover the first principles of the telegraphs ? Their enthusiasm is quite natural, but still we suspect their admiration for " our gifted fellow-citizen, Mr. Frederic Marriott,"—is just a little premature. Of course, if he really does that which they believe he is going to do, constructs a carriage capable of carrying him through the air from San Francisco to New York in twenty- four hours, he will have a reputation like Watt's or Fulton's, will have stamped his name into the history of the world. Such a method of travelling, even if it proved useless, as it probably would prove useless, for the carriage of heavy goods, would revolutionize many of the existing conditions of life, would bring the people of the world, for example, into such immediate and swift contact, as to make of the human race one mighty family, living in a planet far too small for their enterprise. Nothing in the way of geography would be undiscoverable, nothing inaccessible, and even if the masses did not travel, as very likely they would not, still the cos- mopolitanism of cosmopolitans would be real, and not confined to a moderate knowledge of the three or four nations of Western Europe. If all races in all states of civilization were known as one or two are known, half the philosophies of the world would be so modified as to be almost irrecog- nizable, for there is not one of those philosophies which is not in some degree or other based upon a theory of human instincts derived exclusively from observation of the cultivated class in the Western corner of a single continent. The invention of a swift aerial machine, whatever else it did not effect, would at least make of the travelling class a cosmopolitan class, and so modify all human history ; but then, has Mr. Frederic Marriott invented such a machine ? The San Franciscans think so, and have flashed their thought to New York ; but the evidence they offer is not, we think, absolutely conclusive. Clearly, unless the Californian papers are in a conspiracy to tell lies, Mr. Marriott has done this. He has built a balloon which can be driven slowly by a steam engine placed below it, and by vast oars of canvas at its sides, worked by said engine, in any direetioa not forbidden by the violence of the wind. So much seems clear, for it has been accomplished in the presence of many dis- interested men. A balloon shaped like a cigar, or a ship's hull, 37 feet long, 3 feet in beam, and 11 feet in depth, with a small steam engine in her keel amidships and a rudder at her prow, has travelled about through a building and over a racecourse at a pace of five miles an hour very comfortably, a calm being always understood. The model could not get along in a high wind at all, could not, indeed, be got out of its stable, no person was beside the engine, and there is no evidence as to the proportion of weight to size which the " carriage " could convey. According to the statistics given, that proportion may be very small. The model, for instance, contained 880 -cubic feet, yet the contrivance, silk and machinery included, weighs only 84 lb., less by 60 lb. than the ordinary weight of a medium-sized man. It may, of course, be able to carry very much more than that, and in any case we all know that, size being granted, balloons can carry men, but we do not know yet that the extra resistance of extra surface may not neutralize the power of any engine which the lifting power would allow the inventor to employ. Doubtless, with the wind the aerial ship might go easily -enough, and doubtless, also, it may be possible to avoid a head wind in the air as easily as on the sea. But still, before the pro- blem of aerial navigation is solved, we want something which will not blow about in a hurricane like a piece of down, and it is not clear that Mr. Marriott's contrivance will not. The notion of continuous -currents of air always blowing in one direction, of a series of Gulf Streams of wind lying one above another, is, we should mention, not yet established, and if established, the necessity of ascending to such altitudes would greatly diminish the use of the invention. The object of the practical aeronaut is not to get out of the world, but to make a ship not requiring a sea, a locomotive independent of railroad, a machine which can move, say, fifty feet above the earth, or at any altitude, just sufficient to clear obstacles. Great danger is a bore when one wants only to get along. We see no proof as yet that Mr. Marriott has invented anything which, being big enough to carry men, is also big enough to carry a machine strong enough to drive it along in tolerable independence -even of a moderate wind, that he has, in fact, invented an aerial ship. What he has done seems to be merely that which was done by the man who first built a canoe, to discover that a cigar- -shaped vessel is of all others that to which air or water offers least resistance, and that broad oars will help it to get along. He has not apparently even solved the greatest practical diffi- culty of all aeronauts, the discovery of a substance for his balloon which, while extremely light, will still resist a consider- able pressure, a discovery surely not beyond the limits of intellect. He uses apparently silk, like everybody else, and his balloon is therefore liable to leakage and rents and ex- .plosions, and all those disagreeable accidents which, if balloons are ever to be employed by the average of mankind, who cannot look down from a tall house without turning faint, must in some way or other be got rid of. If a new substance could be discovered es light as silk, yet of far greater tenacity, much of the danger of -aerostation would be removed ; it might be even possible to build- balloons in compartments, which would not of necessity all leak together, a great additional security. Models of flying machines very often succeed, but we question whether the old difficulty, the enormous size in comparison with weight, will not always render the guiding power uncertain and precarious, the force of the windon such vast surfaces being greater than any power the aeronaut can apply to his balloon, more especially as the driving power itself must always be some form of sail or blade, as of a screw or paddle- wheel, on which the wind can as it turns get full hold.
It is upon the value of his wings, as lifters, that Mr. Marriott's -credit, as an inventor, must rest. According to the accounts, these wings really assist the motion upwards as the wings of a bird would, and if this is correct, and the principle can be applied to balloons large enough to raise a number of men, the Californian bas achieved a very great mechanical triumph. There is no -absolute impossibility in the project, men, for example, being aided to lift themselves when swimming under water by the movement of the arms, but we doubt the probability of much help in this way without the use of materials so heavy that they would -decrease the rising power as much as the wings increase it. No opinion, however, on this point can be worth anything until we -receive fuller accounts. At present, all we have is a statement that the " wings " did visibly help the model to rise, and that they are constructed as follows :—" Around the balloon lengthwise, and a little below the centre, is a light framework of wood and cane, strongly wired together and braced.
Attached to this frame, and standing up as they approach the
front of the carriage, are two wings, one on either side. They are each five feet wide at a little back of the centre of the carriage,
and do not commence to narrow down until they approach the front, where they come to a point. These wings are made of white cloth fastened to a light framework, which is braced securely by wires. The main frame is secured in place by means of strong ribbons, which go over the balloon and are attached to correspond- ing portions of the frame on the other side. To the frame at the hind part of the carriage is attached a rudder or steering gear, which is exactly the shape of the paper used in pin darts, four planes at right angles. This, when raised or lowered, elevates or depresses the head of the carriage when in motion, and when turned from side to side guides the carriage as a rudder does a boat. The cylinder of the steam engine is two inches in diameter, and has a three-inch stroke. The crank connects by means of cog- wheels, with tumbling rods, which lead out to the propellers, one on either side of the carriage. The propellers are each two-bladed, four feet in diameter, and are placed in the framework of the wings."
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