A FLYING SHIP.

BY ELLA RODMAN CHURCH.

Almost every one has read of Ezekiel Green and his flying machine, and a great many boys and men have been quite sure that they could manufacture wings which would enable them to fly.

As long ago as the reign of James IV. of Scotland an Italian who pretended to be able to change common metals into gold, and who wasted a great deal of the King's money in this way, but all to no purpose, "took in hand to fly with wings" as far as France, and to be there before the King's ambassadors, who travelled in the ordinary way. He had a pair of wings made of feathers, and when these had been fastened upon him he flew off the wall of Stirling Castle, but only to fall heavily to the ground, and break his thigh-bone.

The abbot of Tarryland (for so he had been created by the credulous King) declared that the blame of this failure should be laid upon the fact that there were hen feathers in the wings, and that hens are more inclined to the barn-yard than the skies—a very ingenious way of defending himself; but it could not quiet the twinges in his broken limb.

Another experiment, which was made three hundred years later, was more successful. It was tried on a convict from the galleys, whose life was not thought too valuable to risk, and when ready for flight he must have been an object capable of frightening all the birds of the air. He was "surrounded with whirls of feathers, curiously interlaced, and extending gradually at suitable distances in a horizontal direction from his feet to his neck." When first launched from a height of seventy feet, his feelings could not have been enviable, and the great mass of spectators watched him in almost breathless silence. But instead of falling, he went down slowly, and landed on his feet, with no inconvenience except a feeling of sea-sickness.

Nothing seems to have come of it, as men are not flying through the air yet; but the Flying Ship may possibly have led to the balloon. This strange scheme made quite a sensation in the year 1709, and the first account of it was written in Portuguese. It was invented by a Brazilian priest, who wanted the King of Portugal to adopt it.

In an ancient document purporting to be an address made to this monarch we read: "Father Bartholomew Laurent says that he has found out an Invention, by the Help of which one may more speedily travel through the Air than any other Way either by Sea or Land, so that one may go 200 Miles in 24 Hours; send Orders and Conclusions of Councils to Generals, in a manner, as soon as they are determined in private Cabinets; which will be so much the more Advantageous to your Majesty, as your Dominions lie far remote from one another, and which for want of Councils cannot be maintained nor augmented in Revenues and Extent.

"Merchants may have their Merchandize, and send Letters and Packets more conveniently. Places besieged may be Supply'd with Necessaries and Succours. Moreover, we may transport out of such Places what we please, and the Enemy cannot hinder it."

This remarkable ship was made as nearly in the form of a bird as possible; the tail (not quite true to nature) being the stern, and the head the figure-head of the vessel. At the bottom were two queerly shaped wings "to keep the ship upright"; at the top, the sails, which rounded over like the body of the bird; the light body of the ship was scalloped at both ends, and in the cavity of each was a pair of bellows, to be blown when there was no wind; and there were globes of heaven and earth, two load-stones, and "a good number of large amber beads fastened in an iron wire net, which, by a secret operation, would help to keep the ship aloft."

The strange vehicle was supposed to accommodate ten or eleven men "besides the artist," and this last personage, "by the help of the celestial globe, a sea map and compass, takes the height of the sun, thereby to find out the spot of land over which they are on the globe of the earth." It was a very funny affair, but quite ingenious, considering how little the laws of gravitation, and many other things connected with the art of flying, were then understood; yet no such object has been seen making its way through the air, and a flying ship would be very apt to find itself on the ground or in the water.