"The Balloon-Hoax" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

George Cayley,- had much weakened the public interest in the subject
of aerial navigation. Mr. Henson's scheme (which at first was
considered very feasible even by men of science) was founded upon
the principle of an inclined plane, started from an eminence by an
extrinsic force, applied and continued by the revolution of
impinging vanes, in form and number resembling the vanes of a
windmill. But, in all the experiments made with models at the Adelaide
Gallery, it was found that the operation of these fins not only did
not propel the machine, but actually impeded its flight. The only
propelling force it ever exhibited, was the mere impetus acquired from
the descent of the inclined plane, and this impetus carried the
machine farther when the vanes were at rest, than when they were in
motion- a fact which sufficiently demonstrates their inutility, and in
the absence of the propelling, which was also the sustaining power,
the whole fabric would necessarily descend. This consideration led Sir
George Cayley to think only of adapting a propeller to some machine
having of itself an independent power of support- in a word, to a
balloon; the idea, however, being novel, or original, with Sir George,
only so far as regards the mode of its application to practice. He
exhibited a model of his invention at the Polytechnic Institution. The
propelling principle, or power, was here, also, applied to interrupted
surfaces, or vanes, put in revolution. These vanes were four in
number, but were found entirely ineffectual in moving the balloon,
or in aiding its ascending power. The whole project was thus a
complete failure.
It was at this juncture that Mr. Monck Mason (whose voyage from
Dover to Weilburg in the balloon Nassau occasioned so much
excitement in 1837) conceived the idea of employing the principle of
the Archimedean screw for the purpose of propulsion through the air-
rightly attributing the failure of Mr. Henson's scheme, and of Sir
George Cayley's to the interruption of surface in the independent
vanes. He made the first public experiment at Willis's Rooms, but
afterward removed his model to the Adelaide Gallery.
Like Sir George Cayley's balloon, his own was an ellipsoid. Its
length was 13 feet 6 inches- height, 6 feet 8 inches. It contained
about 320 cubic feet of gas, which, if pure hydrogen, would support 21
pounds upon its first inflation, before the gas has time to
deteriorate or escape. The weight of the whole machine and apparatus
was 17 pounds- leaving about 4 pounds to spare. Beneath the centre
of the balloon, was a frame of light wood, about 9 feet long, and
rigged on to the balloon itself with a net-work in the customary
manner. From this framework was suspended a wicker basket or car.
The screw consists of an axis of hollow brass tube, 18 inches in
length, through which, upon a semi-spiral inclined at 15 degrees, pass
a series of steel-wire radii, 2 feet long, and thus projecting a
foot on either side. These radii are connected at the outer
extremities by 2 bands of flattened wire; the whole in this manner
forming the framework of the screw, which is completed by a covering
of oiled silk cut into gores, and tightened so as to present a
tolerably uniform surface. At each end of its axis this screw is