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.
[THE NATIONAL GAME.]
BY SHERWOOD RYSE.
A GAME OF BASE-BALL AT THE POLO GROUNDS, NEW YORK CITY, ON DECORATION-DAY—YALE VS. PRINCETON.
Base-ball has long been recognized as the national game of this country, and if any one has any idea that cricket or lawn tennis or lacrosse is likely to put it into the background, that person should have been one of the twelve thousand persons who witnessed the great game between Princeton and Yale Colleges on Decoration-day.