housands,
and although the exigencies of recent wars have made them useful, yet
it must be confessed that the art of navigating the air remains in
much the same state in which the brothers Montgolfiers left it at the
close of the last century.

The reason for this want of progress in the art referred to, is not to
be sought in any want of interest in the subject, or of enthusiasm in
prosecuting experiments. Certainly not for want of interest in the
subject because _to fly_, has been the great desideratum of
the race since Adam. And we find in the literature of every age
suggestions for means of achieving flight through the air, in
imitation of birds; or for the construction of ingenious machines for
aerial navigation. And if history and traditions are to be credited,
it would be equally an error to suppose that our age alone had
attempted to put theory into practice in reference to navigating the
air.

Even the fables of the ancients abound with stories about flying: that
of Dedalus and his son Icarius, will occur to every reader. And the
representations of the POETS, and the allusions in HOLY WRIT equally
prove how natural and dear to the mind of man is the idea of
possessing "wings like a dove."

But it is safe enough to assert, that hitherto, all attempts at
_navigating_ the air have been failures.

Floating through the atmosphere in a balloon, at the mercy not only of
every _wind_ but of every _breath_ of air, is in no adequate
sense aerial navigation. And I do not hesitate to say, that balloons
are absolutely incapable of being directed.

All the analogies by which inventors have been encouraged in their
expectations are false, the rudders of ships and the tails of birds
are no exceptions. They will never be able to guide balloons as
sailors do ships, by a rudder, because ships do not float suspended
in the water as balloons float in the air; nor do birds _float_
through the air in any sense. They are not bouyant--lighter than the
element in which they move, but immensely heavier; besides they do not
guide themselves wholly by their tails. We may depend upon it, if we
ever succeed in navigating the air, it will be by a strict adherence
to the principles upon which birds fly, and a close imitation of the
means which they employ to effect that object.

It is true, that in respect to the means to be employed, animals
designed by the Creator for flight, have greatly the advantage of us,
but what natural defici