THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL — MARCH 15, 1896
Novelties in the Realms
DAVID B. JAMES of this City writes THE CALL as follows regarding a new device for navigating the air: In your Sunday edition, March 1, appears, under the heading of “Human Flight,” an article contributed by Otto Lilienthall, embodying his ideas of muscular flying. I will not discuss the practicability of his theory, or the absurd idea advanced and published of the great inventor Edison, of building ships and inflate the sails with gas, and sail through the air the same as if they were on the ocean.
Man has wanted to fly ever since he knew the birds navigated the air, and many minds have given the subject great study. So far none have solved the problem farther than to go up in a balloon. We all know that flying is not impossible, that it is demonstrated by the flight of a thousand different kinds of birds and insects that employ only mechanical means to overcome the action of gravitation. They simply understand how to do it.
Inventors so far have not got on to the lines that promise success, and have made but little advance beyond the balloon.
The day will surely arrive when the air will be navigable by aerial machines as safely as carriages are drawn through the streets, but inventors will have to discard the fine of steam and electricity for a motive power, as they both involve too much weight to be employed as practical agents, and must investigate other fields for motors that will be adapted for the purpose.
