The latest experiments with Prof. Wellner's flying machine do not seem to favor the construction of those air-ships which are intended to rise by the strength of their lifting power only, this power sufficiently outbalancing their weight. Some eminent European aëronauts—Profs. Pistio, Miller, Hauenfels, and Wellner himself—now favor the principle of partial disburdening by the application of some gas or other, which will add to the lifting power of the machine.
Important and very animated discussions of the present aspect of aëronautics have recently taken place in London and in Vienna. In the Aëronautic Section of the British Association Prof. H. Maxim laid before his colleagues a detailed report of the
Fig. 6.—Wellner's Sail-wheel Flying Machine for Four Persons.
experiments made with the model which he has had constructed for the purpose, and which, though it has met with an accident and has not led to a definite result so far, has certainly brought the vital question nearer to its solution. Prof. Maxim's apparatus is a wonder of ingenuity. It carries its provision of fuel in the form of naphtha in a small, exceedingly light boiler, so constructed as to cause a constant, unvarying pressure. The machine proved able to rise and fly for thirteen hours at a velocity of more than fifty English miles per hour. Its two large screw-propellers are set in motion by two compound engines, the strongest in proportion to their size that have ever been made. Their construction allows of the power being raised within one minute from two hundred to three hundred and twenty-five pounds per square inch. The screws are capable of more than five hundred
