Later, Roger Bacon and Leonardo da Vinci,
each in his turn ruminated in manuscript upon the subject of
flight. Bacon, the scientist, put forward a theory of thin copper
globes filled with liquid fire, which would soar. Leonardo,
artist, studied the wings of birds. The Jesuit Francisco Lana, in
1670, working on Bacon's theory sketched an airship made of four
copper balls with a skiff attached; this machine was to soar by
means of the lighter-than-air globes and to be navigated aloft by
oars and sails.
But while philosophers in their libraries were designing airships
on paper and propounding their theories, venturesome men,
"crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings," were making
pinions of various fabrics and trying them upon the wind. Four
years after Lana suggested his airship with balls and oars,
Besnier, a French locksmith, made a flying machine of four
collapsible planes like book covers suspended on rods. With a rod
over each shoulder, and moving the two front planes with his arms
and the two back ones by his feet, Besnier gave exhibitions of
gliding from a height to the earth. But his machine could not
soar. What may be called the first patent on a flying machine was
recorded in 1709 when Bartholomeo de Gusmao, a friar, appeared
before the King of Portugal to announce that he had invented a
flying machine and to request an order prohibiting other men from
making anything of the sort.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220