The reason for this want of progress in the art referred to, is not to be sought in any want of interest in the subject, or of enthusiasm in prosecuting experiments. Certainly not for want of interest in the subject because to fly, has been the great desideratum of the race since Adam. And we find in the literature of every age suggestions for means of achieving flight through the air, in imitation of birds; or for the construction of ingenious machines for aerial navigation. And if history and traditions are to be credited, it would be equally an error to suppose that our age alone had attempted to put theory into practice in reference to navigating the air.
Even the fables of the ancients abound with stories about flying: that of Dedalus and his son Icarius, will occur to every reader. And the representations of the POETS, and the allusions in HOLY WRIT equally prove how natural and dear to the mind of man is the idea of possessing "wings like a dove."
But it is safe enough to assert, that hitherto, all attempts at navigating the air have been failures.
Floating through the atmosphere in a balloon, at the mercy not only of every wind but of every breath of air, is in no adequate sense aerial navigation. And I do not hesitate to say, that balloons are absolutely incapable of being directed.
All the analogies by which inventors have been encouraged in their expectations are false, the rudders of ships and the tails of birds are no exceptions. They will never be able to guide balloons as sailors do ships, by a rudder, because ships do not float suspended in the water as balloons float in the air; nor do birds float through the air in any sense. They are not bouyant--lighter than the element in which they move, but immensely heavier; besides they do not guide themselves wholly by their tails. We may depend upon it, if we ever succeed in navigating the air, it will be by a strict adherence to the principles upon which birds fly, and a close imitation of the means which they employ to effect that object.
It is true, that in respect to the means to be employed, animals designed by the Creator for flight, have greatly the advantage of us, but what natural deficiencies will not human ingenuity supply, and what obstacles will not human skill overcome? It has already triumphed over much greater than any that Nature has interposed between man and the pleasures of aerial communication.
We have to a great extent, mastered the mysterious elements of nature.
We have conquered the thunderbolt and learned to write with the burning fluid out of which it is forged.
We have converted the boundless ocean into a vast highway, traversed for our use and on our errands, by the swift agent, and by great ships driven against wind and tide by the mighty power of steam.
And yet a single generation ago, we knew nothing of all this, Our grand-sires would have given these achievements a prominent place in the list of impossible things.