"I have not the shadow of a doubt"--these are his own words, spoken to
me quite recently at Washington--"that the problem of aerial
navigation will be solved within ten years. That means an entire
revolution in the world's methods of transportation and of making war.
I am able to speak with more authority on this subject from the fact
of being actively associated with Professor Langley of the Smithsonian
Institution in his researches and experiments. I am not at liberty to
speak in detail of these experiments, but will say that the
calculations of scientific men in regard to the amount of power
necessary to maintain an air-ship above the earth have been strangely
erroneous; I may say ridiculously so. According to these, Nature would
have given the birds and insects a muscular force vastly greater and
superior in its qualities to that bestowed upon man. That seems
unreasonable in the first place, when one reflects that man is at the
head of creation, and we have found practically that such is not the
case. The power required to lift and propel an air-ship is very much
less than has been supposed; indeed, Professor Langley concludes that
when the air-ship has once been lifted above the earth to the proper
height, it will be possible to maintain it there with proportionately
no greater effort than that expended by hawks and eagles in sailing
about with extended wings. The air strata will do the bulk of the
lifting, if a small propelling power is provided. Of course, a greater
power will be necessary to lift the air-ship originally, and it may be
some time before the art of managing an air-ship is discovered; but
the final result, I am convinced, will allow men to sail about in the
air as easily and as safely as the birds do. I predict that we will
see the beginning of this modern miracle by the end of the nineteenth
century.
"Of course the air-ship of the future will be constructed without any
balloon attachment. The discovery of the balloon undoubtedly retarded
the solution of the flying problem for over a hundred years. Ever
since the Montgolfiers taught the world how to rise in the air by
means of inflated gas-bags, the inventors working at the problem of
aerial navigation have been thrown on the wrong track. Scientific men
have been wasting their time trying to steer balloons, a thing which
in the nature of the case is impossible to any great extent, inasmuch
as balloons, being lighter than the resisting air, can never make
headway against it. The fundamental principle of aerial navigation is
that the air-ship must be heavier than the air. It is only of recent
years that men capable of studying the problem seriously have accepted
this as an axiom. Electricity in one form or another will undoubtedly
be the motive power for air-ships, and every advance in electrical
knowledge brings us one step nearer to the day when we shall fly. It
would be perfectly possible, to-day, to direct a flying machine by
means of pendant electric wires which would transmit the necessary
current without increasing the load to be borne. Perhaps a feasible
means of propelling such an air-ship would be by a kind of trolley
system where the rod would hang down from the car to the stretched
wire, instead of extending upward. This is an idea which I would
recommend to inventors."
It is most interesting to watch Professor Bell as he talks about the
great inventions which he sees with prophetic eye in store for the
world. He has the happy faculty of expressing great ideas in simple
words, and there is nothing ponderous in his speech. He is as
enthusiastic as a school-boy thinking of the kite he will make as big
as a barn-door. His black eyes flash, and they seem all the blacker
contrasted with his white hair; the words tumble out quickly, and
those who have the good fortune to listen are carried away by the
magnetism of this great inventor.