How was it with the swimmer; how was it with the agile and dexterous skater; how with the acrobat, and what but practice has just enabled WESTON to walk one hundred and twelve miles in twenty-four hours, and four hundred miles in five days?
For want of a better name, I will call the machine upon which I am to practice, the "Instructor." It is simple, but it gives the learner just what he wants--an endless series of inclined planes.
It will prevent accidents, and until the student has mastered the mechanical movements necessary to flight, will supplement his efforts by partially balancing his weight.
It consists of a beam fifty feet long, poised and attached by a universal joint to the top of a form post, say twenty feet or more in height. Upon one end of this beam the practitioner stands, arrayed in his wings. A movable weight at the other end completes the apparatus; and yet this simple machine, will form the entering wedge to aerial navigation.
And now methinks I see you smile, but, my unbelieving friends, let me remind you that Copernicus, and Galileo, and Franklink, and Fulton, and Morse,--all better men than your humble servant, were laughed at before me.
Their work is done. Their monuments stand in all lands, and yet one of this band of truly great and worthy names still lives, and to him I am indebted for many kind and encouraging words.
It is little besides this that I ask of you. The stock which you are solicited to take in this enterprise is small. But enable me by your patronage to devote myself for a time wholly to my project. See to it, that I do not fail for want of support. Buy my little pamphlet at its insignificant cost, ask your friends to do so; and should any of you wish to contribute anything more to this cause, which I have made my own, and which I am determined to push to a triumphant issue, he may be sure that he will receive the acknowledgments of a grateful and earnest man, who has himself devoted to it the aspirations and efforts of a long life, and who is still willing to take all the risks of failure upon himself.
The undersigned would be pleased to have friends interested in this subject, call upon him, when the matter will be more fully described.
ROBERT HARDLEY,
17 PERRY STREET, or
114 Sixth Ave., cor. 9th St.