with necessaries and succours: moreover, we may transport out of such places what we please and the enemy cannot hinder it.*

66

1736.-The Gentleman's Magazine for this year records that "on the evening of the 1st October, during the performance of an entertainment called Dr. Faustus at Covent Garden Theatre, one James Todd, who represented the "Miller's Man," fell from the upper stage in a flying machine by the breaking of the wires. He fractured his skull and died miserably : three others were much hurt, but recovered.'

This actually came true, as witness the siege of Paris and the Balloon Post.

1742. In this year the Marquis de Bacqueville announced that he would fly with wings from the top of his own house on the Quai des Theatins to the Gardens of the Tuileries.

He actually accomplished half the distance, when, being exhausted with his efforts, the wings no longer beat the air, and he came

MARQUIS DE BACQUEVILLE.

down into the Seine, and would have escaped unhurt but that he fell against one of the floating machines of the Parisian laundresses and thereby fractured his leg.

1753. The earliest advertisement having reference to balloons is that in the Public Advertiser of September 24th, 1753

"MARYBONE GARDENS.

"The Musical Entertainments at this place. will end this Evening.

"The doors to be opened at 5 o'clock, the Music to begin exactly at six, and the Fireworks at nine. 2 Sky Rockets, 2 Air Balloons, 2 Balloons, and a large Balloon Wheel, which throws out of eight boxes Stars and Serpents. "Admittance One Shilling."

So spelt.

1758. About this time Dr. Johnson wrote his Rasselas. In Chapter VI. is a dissertation on the art of flying. He says:—

"Among the artists that had been allured into the Happy Valley to labour for the accommodation and pleasure of its inhabitants was a man eminent for his knowledge of the mechanic powers, who had contrived many engines, both for use and recreation.

"One day he was found busy in building a sailing chariot. 'Sir,' said the master, 'You have seen but a small part of what the mechanic arts can perform. I have long been of opinion that instead of the tardy conveyance of ships and chariots man might use the swifter migration of wings, that the fields of air are open to knowledge, and that only ignorance and idleness need crawl upon the ground.'

"The labour of rising from the ground will be great,' said the artist, as we see it in the heavier domestic fowls; but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction and the body's gravity will be gradually diminished, till we arrive at a region where man shall float in the air without any tendency to fall.'

666

Nothing,' replied the artist, 'will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome. If you will favour my project, I will by the first flight at my own hazard convince you. I have considered the structure of all volant animals, and find the folding continuity of the bat's wings most easily accommodated to

the human form. Upon this model I will begin my task to-morrow, and in a year I expect to tower into the air beyond the malice and pursuit of man.'

"In a year the wings were finished, and on the morning appointed the maker appeared, furnished for flight, on a little promontory: he waved his pinions awhile to gather air, then leaped from his stand, and in an instant dropped into the lake.

His wings, which were of no use in the air, sustained him in the water, and the Prince drew him to land half dead with terror and vexation." 1784.-James Tytler, surgeon, chemist, aëronaut, litterateur, and poet, the editor of the second edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica,

after failing in two attempts, ascended from Comely Gardens in a fire balloon, stove and all, to a height of 350 feet.

1817. In the foreign journals of this year there was the following announcement :

Flying Machine. "A country clergyman in Lower Saxony has been so happy as to succeed in accomplishing the invention of an air-ship.

"The machine is built of light wood; it is made to float in the air, chiefly by means of the constant action of a large pair of bellows of a peculiar construction, which occupies in the front the position of the lungs, and the neck of a bird on the wing; the wings on both sides are directed by cords.

"The height to which a farmer's boy about ten or twelve years old, whom the inventor had instructed in the management of it, had hitherto ascended with it, is not considerable, because his attention has been more directed to give a progressive than an ascending motion to his machine."

All the above records are facts so far as relates to flying machines. But it is worthy of note that a strange theory has been put forward, that during life, the quills of birds, as well as their hollow bones, are filled with hydrogen.

"Flying animals," says a writer in All the Year Round for March 7th, 1868, "are built to hold gases everywhere in their bones, their bodies, their skins; and their blood is several degrees warmer than the blood of walking or