History

The first suggestion of flight by means of apparatus lighter from air came from De Lana, who in 1670 suggested that a vessel exhausted of air, if itself light enough, would rise in the air. We know today that no material exist by means of which this idea could be realized, since the pressure would crush any material known. About the same time the line of attack through gliding began to be realized, and experiments in this direction and that of flapping wings probably never ceased. People were always attaching some kinds of wings to themselves and jumping off Church's tower and other elevated points, frequently having the luck to escape serious injury. Sir George Calley (1773-1857), an eminent English Mathematician, turn his attention seriously to the whole problem. He finally rejected the idea of the ' unhoped,' i.e, of flight human muscular power through flapping wings, and actually suggested that the final solution would come from an explosion engine, which for the year 1809 was the remarkable manifestation of prophetic genius. In the meantime there was the ascents of Montgolfier's balloon in 1873, fallowed by the first human ascent of Pilatre de Rozier in the same year. In the following year, Tytler ascended in a hydrogen balloon of Edinburgh, the first human being to navigate the air over Br.soil. BOOK (2) Source: New Master Pictorial Encyclopedia.