II.—HISTORY AND FABLE.

In turning our thoughts to History, reaching back even into the mazy and wonderful ages of fable, we find that from time immemorial the great science of ærostation has occupied the minds of philosophers and inventors. There can be little doubt that it was known and made use of in olden times in isolated cases, but was again lost, like many other important inventions.

We are furnished with many interesting proofs of this. Old Chinese, Arabian and Hindu fables give some beautiful descriptions of ærial chariots, in which wizards, princes and fairies sped over the fertile and populous plains of their native country, disbursing good or evil, according to their disposition, to the poor devils crawling in the dust beneath them. The Jews had their cherubim. The Assyrians have left us their winged bulls; the Greeks, their Sphinxes; while the Roman writers describe how that mythical personage, Daedalus, a famous Athenian artificer, and builder of the Cretan labyrinth, constructed wings with which he flew across the Ægian Sea, to escape the resentment of Minos. But his son, Icarus, undoubtedly of his strength giving out, fell into the water and was drowned. Their nation has bequeathed to us various bas-reliefs, illustrative of what appear well-proportioned wings.

Archytos, the great geometrician, made a wooden dove that flew like a natural one, and the famous German astronomer, John Mueller, who died suddenly in Rome, at the age of forty, in 1476, and whose memory was celebrated last month in Germany, constructed an artificial eagle, which flew out to greet the Emperor, Charles V, when he visited Nuremberg. This Mueller was more widely known by the assumed name of "Regiomontanus,"—the "Kingshiller"—that is, "one from Kœnigsberg," a small village in the heart of Germany; the custom of the times being for learned men to adopt the latin name of their birthplace. He invented the almanac, and prepared the first astronomical tables, by the aid of which mariners, who, up to that late day could only make coasting voyages, were enabled to trust themselves to the open sea, with some degree of assurance; and Columbus was among the earliest to use these tables, twenty years afterwards, on his first discovery voyage to America.

Another German, a young watchmaker's apprentice, constructed a flying machine, with which he, when showing the same to his ignorant townspeople, flew away to escape mobbing. His bones and pieces of the machine were found some years afterward in a wild and isolated part of the Black Forest. Towards the end of the fifteenth century Giovanni Battista Dantes, of Perugia, flew several times over the Thrasimenian Sea; he certainly must have been at a considerable elevation, for he fell on a church steeple and broke a leg. Another account, particularly noticed in history, is that of a man who flew high in the air in the City of Rome, under the reign of Nero, but lost his life in the descent.

In "Astra Castra," we read that soon after Bacon's time, projects were instituted to train up children in the exercise of flying with artificial wings, and considerable progress was made; by the combined effort of running and flying they were enabled to skim over the surface, as it were, with incredible speed. This same Roger Bacon, an eminent philosopher of the thirteenth century, and possessed of the very highest genius and ability, whose ideas and knowledge, like Franklin's, were many hundred years ahead of his age, descants, in one of his works, in glowing language, on the practicability of constructing engines that could navigate the air. He accomplished wonderful things in his day, and was accused of holding communion with the devil, who was quite an important personage in those times. His writings were interdicted, and himself locked up to prevent closer acquaintanceship of his readers with the aforesaid friend.

About the Confessor's time, a monk, Elmirus, in Spain, flew often, by means of a pair of wings, many miles from high elevations. Cuperus, in his treatise on "The Excellency of Man," contends that it is practicable for human beings to attain the faculty of flying. He asserts that Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter of the "Lord's Supper," and other highly prized works of art, practiced it successfully. The reasoning of the great John Wilkins, Lord Bishop of Chester, who died in 1672, embodies the sentiments and principles of all these on the subject even stronger. In his work on "Mechanical Motion," he treats expressly on artificial flight, and conceives, in the sixth chapter, the framing of such "volitant automata" very easy; and says that the time will come when men will call for their wings when about to make a journey, as they do now for their boots and spurs.

Lastly, in the "Journal de Savans," of the 12th of September, 1678, an account is given of one Besnier, a locksmith of Sable, France, who succeeded in flying. But as his machine was extremely primitive—the wings consisting only of four rectangular surfaces, one at the end of each of two poles, which passed over the shoulder of the operator, and were worked alternately up and down—the inventor could only avail himself of their aid in progressively raising himself from one hight to another, until an elevated position was reached, when he could glide through the air a long distance.

Many more cases could be cited. Some ended disastrously; others, because of the apathy, distrust, ignorance, and superstition of the people, were lost sight of again; while some, perhaps the most practical ones and of which we find many indications in old writings, were never made known for selfish reasons. Such has been the fate of this—one of the most interesting problems—almost up to the present time. We were, perhaps, not prepared sufficiently, to receive the great boon. We had to have the printing press, steam, and electricity first, before we could attempt this next great step towards a higher civilization.