THE PROFESSOR TALKS ON AVIATION.
The last remark of Professor Morgan threw Bohunkus Johnson into a state
of excitement. He had obeyed Harvey and remained mute during the
conversation, but he now addressed the visitor directly:
“Did yo’ say Afriky, boss?”
The man looked in his direction and nodded his head.
“That’s what I said, sir.”
“Dat’s where my fader libs.”
Harvey felt it his duty to explain:
“My colored friend claims to be the son of a distinguished African
chief, whom he hopes to visit some day.”
“What is the name of the chief?” asked the Professor.
“His given name is the same as his; the full name is Bohunkus Foozleum.”
“I can’t say I ever heard of him,” remarked the Professor without
cracking a smile.
“I sent him a letter a month ago, in de care ob Colonel Roosevelt and
it’s ’bout time I got an answer. I’m sure de Colonel will call on him
while he’s hunting in Afriky.”
“Well, when my machine is perfected, I’ll take you with me and it
sha’n’t cost you a penny,” said Professor Morgan.
Bohunkus chuckled with delight and settled down to listen. The visitor
now ignored him and addressed the others.
“Aviation is the theme that fills nearly all minds and it is daily
growing in importance. The possibilities are boundless; it will
revolutionize travel, social life and the methods of warfare. It will
render the destruction of life and property so appallingly easy that no
nation will dare array itself against another. You and I are likely to
see that day when:—
“‘The war drum throbs no longer and the battle flags are furled
O’er the parliament of nations, o’er a reunited world.’
“We can remember the universality of the bicycle; then came, and it
stays with us, the automobile, and now it is the aeroplane. The day is
near when there will be numberless routes established between cities and
countries and when the ocean will be crossed east and west by a
procession of heavier-than-air machines, and every family will have its
hangar and its occupant awaiting the wish of the owner.”
The Professor showed a disposition to quiz the young aviator, who met
him as best he could, though sensible of his lack of knowledge as
compared with one who had given so much thought and experimentation to
it.
“Naturally,” said he, “men’s first ideas were of using wings as birds
do, but it would take a Samson or a Hercules to put forth the necessary
strength. But it has been tried times without number. I think the
ancient Greeks wove many romantic tales of aerial flights—”
The Professor paused and Harvey accepted the invitation:
“Such as Daedalus and Icarus, who were said to have flown to the sun and
back again. The Greek Achytus made a dove of wood, driven by heated air,
and one of his countrymen constructed a brass fly which kept above the
ground for some minutes.”
“Do you recall what aviator first came to grief?”
“‘Simon the Magician,’ who during the reign of the emperor Nero made a
short flight before a Roman crowd but tumbled to death, as did a good
many during the Middle Ages.”
“The Chinese were centuries ahead of the rest of the world in the use of
the mariner’s compass, printing, gunpowder and the flying of kites.
There are authentic records of balloon flights in the fourteenth
century, and a hundred years later discoveries were made of which
present aviators have taken advantage. You have learned that although
America was visited a thousand years ago and even earlier by white men,
the glory of the discovery is given to Christopher Columbus. So the
credit of the first real step in aviation belongs to two Frenchmen. Can
you help me to recall their names?”
“I don’t think you need any help,” laughed Harvey, who saw the drift of
his friend’s quizzing, “but the men you have in mind were Joseph and
Etienne Montgolfier, who lived at Annonay, about forty miles from
Lyons.”
“What was their idea of aerostation?”
“They learned from many experiments that a light globe filled with hot
air will rise because its weight is less than the surrounding
atmosphere, just as a cork or bit of pine comes to the surface of water.
They made a globular ball, thirty-five feet in diameter, of varnished
silk, and in June, 1783, in the presence of an immense crowd at Annonay
built a fire under the mouth on the lower side. Soon after when the
ropes were loosened, the balloon mounted upward for more than a mile,
then was carried to one side by a current of air and as the vapor within
cooled, came gently down to earth again.
“The incident caused a sensation and Paris subscribed money for
manufacturing hydrogen, a very buoyant gas to take the place of hot air.
The brothers sent up such a balloon in Paris in the latter part of
August. It sailed aloft for half a mile, finally drifted out of sight
and came down fifteen miles from the starting point.”
“Did it carry any passenger?” asked the Professor.
“No; the time had not come for that venture, but soon after the brothers
sent up a second hot air balloon at Versailles, in the presence of the
king and queen. A wicker cage was suspended below and in it were a duck,
a rooster and a sheep, all of which showed less excitement than the
cheering thousands. It rose about a fourth of a mile, and eight minutes
after leaving the ground descended two miles away.”
“Who was the first man to go up in a balloon?” asked Abisha Wharton.
“I don’t remember his name; can you tell me, Professor?”
“Pilatre de Rozier, whose ascent was made on the 15th of October, 1783,
in an oval balloon constructed by the Montgolfiers. It was not quite
fifty feet in diameter and half again as high. A circular wicker basket
was suspended beneath, and under the neck of the balloon in the center
was an iron grate or brazier supported by chains, the whole structure
weighing sixteen hundred pounds. M. de Rozier fed the flames with straw
and wood and thus kept the air sufficiently heated to lift him
eighty-four feet, where held by ropes, the balloon remained suspended
for four and a half minutes and then gently came back to earth.
“This incident blazed the way for successful aerostation. M. de Rozier
accomplished higher and more durable ascents and occasionally took a
passenger with him. We must remember, however, that in all these
instances, the balloon was restrained by ropes and could not wander off.
The aeronauts chafed under such restriction, and on November 21, 1783,
M. de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes cut loose from the earth in
front of a royal palace in the Bois de Boulogne, it being the first time
such a thing was ever done. The ascent lasted not quite half an hour,
when the aeronauts came safely down in a field five miles distant from
the starting point.” [1]
Footnote 1:
It is well to bear the following distinctions in mind: aerostation is
the art of flying in a balloon; when the balloon is equipped with
motor and propellers so as to be navigable, it is dirigible; an
aerocar is any kind of a flying machine; an aeronaut is any one who
navigates the air in a balloon; an aeroplane is a flying machine which
is heavier than air; a monoplane is a one-planed and a biplane a
two-planed flying machine; a triplane consists of three superposed
planes; a quadruplane of four planes; airmen are either aeronauts or
aviators; aviation is the art of flying in an aeroplane and an aviator
is one who so flies; aeronef is an aeroplane as defined by
International Congress; a hangar corresponds to a garage for an
automobile; ornithopter is a heavier-than-air machine, with wings upon
which it depends for support and propulsion; petrol is the European
name for gasoline.
-----