Marvels of Modern Science.

by Paul Severing.

Introduction

The purpose of this little book is to give a general idea of a few of the great achievements of our time. Within such a limited s.p.a.ce it was impossible to even mention thousands more of the great inventions and triumphs which mark the rushing progress of the world in the present century; therefore, only those subjects have been treated which appeal with more than pa.s.sing interest to all. For instance, the flying machine is engaging the attention of the old, the young and the middle-aged, and soon the whole world will be on the wing. Radium, "the revealer,"

is opening the door to possibilities almost beyond human conception.

Wireless Telegraphy is crossing thousands of miles of s.p.a.ce with invisible feet and making the nations of the earth as one. 'Tis the same with the other subjects,--one and all are of vital, human interest, and are extremely attractive on account of their importance in the civilization of today. Mighty, sublime, wonderful, as have been the achievements of past science, as yet we are but on the verge of the continents of discovery. Where is the wizard who can tell what lies in the womb of time? Just as our conceptions of many things have been revolutionized in the past, those which we hold to-day of the cosmic processes may have to be remodeled in the future. The men of fifty years hence may laugh at the circ.u.mscribed knowledge of the present and shake their wise heads in contemplation of what they will term our crudities, and which we now call _progress_. Science is ever on the march and what is new to-day will be old to-morrow. We cannot go back, we must go forward, and although we can never reach finality in aught, we can improve on the _past_ to enrich the _future_. If this volume creates an interest and arouses an enthusiasm in the ordinary men and women into whose hands it may come, and stimulates them to a study of the great events making for the enlightenment, progress and elevation of the race, it shall have fulfilled its mission and serve the purpose for which it was written.

CHAPTER I

FLYING MACHINES

Early Attempts at Flight--The Dirigible--Professor Langley's Experiment--The Wright Brothers--Count Zeppelin--Recent Aeroplane Records.

It is hard to determine when men first essayed the attempt to fly. In myth, legend and tradition we find allusions to aerial flight and from the very dawn of authentic history, philosophers, poets, and writers have made allusion to the subject, showing that the idea must have early taken root in the restless human heart. Aeschylus exclaims:

"Oh, might I sit, sublime in air Where watery clouds the freezing snows prepare!"

Ariosto in his "Orlando Furioso" makes an English knight, whom he names Astolpho, fly to the banks of the Nile; nowadays the authors are trying to make their heroes fly to the North Pole.

Some will have it that the ancient world had a civilization much higher than the modern and was more advanced in knowledge. It is claimed that steam engines and electricity were common in Egypt thousands of years ago and that literature, science, art, and architecture flourished as never since. Certain it is that the Pyramids were for a long time the most solid "Skysc.r.a.pers" in the world.

Perhaps, after all, our boasted progress is but a case of going back to first principles, of history, or rather tradition repeating itself.

The flying machine may not be as new as we think it is. At any rate the conception of it is old enough.

In the thirteenth century Roger Bacon, often called the "Father of Philosophy," maintained that the air could be navigated. He suggested a hollow globe of copper to be filled with "ethereal air or liquid fire," but he never tried to put his suggestion into practice. Father Va.s.son, a missionary at Canton, in a letter dated September 5, 1694, mentions a balloon that ascended on the occasion of the coronation of the Empress Fo-Kien in 1306, but he does not state where he got the information.

The balloon is the earliest form of air machine of which we have record.

In 1767 a Dr. Black of Edinburgh suggested that a thin bladder could be made to ascend if filled with inflammable air, the name then given to hydrogen gas.

In 1782 Cavallo succeeded in sending up a soap bubble filled with such gas.

It was in the same year that the Montgolfier brothers of Annonay, near Lyons in France, conceived the idea of using hot air for lifting things into the air. They got this idea from watching the smoke curling up the chimney from the heat of the fire beneath.

In 1783 they constructed the first successful balloon of which we have any description. It was in the form of a round ball, 110 feet in circ.u.mference and, with the frame weighed 300 pounds. It was filled with 22,000 cubic feet of vapor. It rose to a height of 6,000 feet and proceeded almost 7,000 feet, when it gently descended. France went wild over the exhibition.

The first to risk their lives in the air were M. Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis de Arlandes, who ascended over Paris in a hot-air balloon in November, 1783. They rose five hundred feet and traveled a distance of five miles in twenty-five minutes.

In the following December Messrs. Charles and Robert, also Frenchmen, ascended ten thousand feet and traveled twenty-seven miles in two hours.

The first balloon ascension in Great Britain was made by an experimenter named Tytler in 1784. A few months later Lunardi sailed over London.

In 1836 three Englishmen, Green, Mason and Holland, went from London to Germany, five hundred miles, in eighteen hours.

The greatest balloon exhibition up to then, indeed the greatest ever, as it has never been surpa.s.sed, was given by Glaisher and c.o.xwell, two Englishmen, near Wolverhampton, on September 5, 1862. They ascended to such an elevation that both lost the power of their limbs, and had not c.o.xwell opened the descending valve with his teeth, they would have ascended higher and probably lost their lives in the rarefied atmosphere, for there was no compressed oxygen then as now to inhale into their lungs. The last reckoning of which they were capable before Glaisher lost consciousness showed an elevation of twenty-nine thousand feet, but it is supposed that they ascended eight thousand feet higher before c.o.xwell was able to open the descending valve. In 1901 in the city of Berlin two Germans rose to a height of thirty-five thousand feet, but the two Englishmen of almost fifty years ago are still given credit for the highest ascent.

The largest balloon ever sent aloft was the "Giant" of M. Nadar, a Frenchman, which had a capacity of 215,000 cubic feet and required for a covering 22,000 yards of silk. It ascended from the Champ de Mars, Paris, in 1853, with fifteen pa.s.sengers, all of whom came back safely.

The longest flight made in a balloon was that by Count de La Vaulx, 1193 miles in 1905.

A mammoth balloon was built in London by A. E. Gaudron. In 1908 with three other aeronauts Gaudron crossed from the Crystal Palace to the Belgian Coast at Ostend and then drifted over Northern Germany and was finally driven down by a snow storm at Mateki Derevni in Russia, having traveled 1,117 miles in 31-1/2 hours. The first attempt at constructing a dirigible balloon or airship was made by M. Giffard, a Frenchman, in 1852. The bag was spindle-shaped and 144 feet from point to point.

Though it could be steered without drifting the motor was too weak to propel it. Giffard had many imitations in the spindle-shaped envelope construction, but it was a long time before any good results were obtained.

It was not until 1884 that M. Gaston Tissandier constructed a dirigible in any way worthy of the name. It was operated by a motor driven by a bichromate of soda battery. The motor weighed 121 lbs. The cells held liquid enough to work for 2-1/2 hours, generating 1-1/3 horse power. The screw had two arms and was over nine feet in circ.u.mference.

Tissandier made some successful flights.

The first dirigible balloon to return whence it started was that known as _La France_. This airship was also constructed in 1884. The designer was Commander Renard of the French Marine Corps a.s.sisted by Captain Krebs of the same service. The length of the envelope was 179 feet, its diameter 27-1/2 feet. The screw was in front instead of behind as in all others previously constructed. The motor which weighed 220-1/2 lbs. was driven by electricity and developed 8-1/2 horse power.

The propeller was 24 feet in diameter and only made 46 revolutions to the minute. This was the first time electricity was used as a motor force, and mighty possibilities were conceived.

In 1901 a young Brazilian, Santos-Dumont, made a spectacular flight.

M. Deutch, a Parisian millionaire, offered a prize of $20,000 for the first dirigible that would fly from the Parc d'Aerostat, encircle the Eiffel Tower and return to the starting point within thirty minutes, the distance of such flight being about nine miles. Dumont won the prize though he was some forty seconds over time. The length of his dirigible on this occasion was 108 feet, the diameter 19-1/2 feet. It had a 4-cylinder petroleum motor weighing 216 lbs., which generated 20 horse power. The screw was 13 feet in diameter and made three hundred revolutions to the minute.

From this time onward great progress was made in the constructing of airships. Government officials and many others turned their attention to the work. Factories were put in operation in several countries of Europe and by the year 1905 the dirigible had been fairly well established. Zeppelin, Pa.r.s.eval, Lebaudy, Baidwin and Gross were crowding one another for honors. All had given good results, Zeppelin especially had performed some remarkable feats with his machines.

In the construction of the dirigible balloon great care must be taken to build a strong, as well as light framework and to suspend the car from it so that the weight will be equally distributed, and above all, so to contrive the gas contained that under no circ.u.mstances can it become tilted. There is great danger in the event of tilting that some of the stays suspending the car may snap and the construction fall to pieces in the air.

In deciding upon the shape of a dirigible balloon the chief consideration is to secure an end surface which presents the least possible resistance to the air and also to secure stability and equilibrium. Of course the motor, fuel and propellers are other considerations of vital importance.

The first experimenter on the size of wing surface necessary to sustain a man in the air, calculated from the proportion of weight and wing surface in birds, was Karl Meerwein of Baden. He calculated that a man weighing 200 lbs. would require 128 square feet. In 1781 he made a spindle-shaped apparatus presenting such a surface to the resistance of the air. It was collapsible on the middle and here the operator was fastened and lay horizontally with his face towards the earth working the collapsible wings by means of a transverse rod. It was not a success.

During the first half of the 19th Century there were many experiments with wing surfaces, none of which gave any promise. In fact it was not until 1865 that any advance was made, when Francis Wenham showed that the lifting power of a plane of great superficial area could be obtained by dividing the large plane into several parts arranged on tiers. This may be regarded as the germ of the modern aeroplane, the first glimmer of hope to filter through the darkness of experimentation until then.

When Wenham's apparatus went against a strong wind it was only lifted up and thrown back. However, the idea gave thought to many others years afterwards.

In 1885 the brothers Lilienthal in Germany discovered the possibility of driving curved aeroplanes against the wind. Otto Lilienthal held that it was necessary to begin with "sailing" flight and first of all that the art of balancing in the air must be learned by practical experiments. He made several flights of the kind now known as _gliding_.

From a height of 100 feet he glided a distance of 700 feet and found he could deflect his flight from left to right by moving his legs which were hanging freely from the seat. He attached a light motor weighing only 96 lbs. and generating 2-1/2 horse power. To sustain the weight he had to increase the size of his planes.

Unfortunately this pioneer in modern aviation was killed in an experiment, but he left much data behind which has helped others. His was the first actual flyer which demonstrated the elementary laws governing real flight and blazed the way for the successful experiments of the present time. His example made the gliding machine a continuous performance until real practical aerial flight was achieved.

As far back as 1894 Maxim built a giant aeroplane but it was too c.u.mbersome to be operated.

In America the wonderful work of Professor Langley of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution with his aerodromes attracted worldwide attention. Langley was the great originator of the science of aerodynamics on this side of the water. Langley studied from artificial birds which he had constructed and kept almost constantly before him.

To Langley, Chanute, Herring and Manly, America owes much in the way of aeronautics before the Wrights entered the field. The Wrights have given the greatest impetus to modern aviation. They entered the field in 1900 and immediately achieved greater results than any of their predecessors. They followed the idea of Lilienthal to a certain extent.

They made gliders in which the aviator had a horizontal position and they used twice as great a lifting surface as that hitherto employed.

The flights of their first motor machine was made December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, N.C. In 1904 with a new machine they resumed experiments at their home near Dayton, O. In September of that year they succeeded in changing the course from one dead against the wind to a curved path where cross currents must be encountered, and made many circular flights. During 1906 they rested for a while from practical flight, perfecting plans for the future. In the beginning of September, 1908, Orville Wright made an aeroplane flight of one hour, and a few days later stayed up one hour and fourteen minutes. Wilbur Wright went to France and began a series of remarkable flights taking up pa.s.sengers.

On December 31, of that year, he startled the world by making the record flight of two hours and nineteen minutes.

It was on Sept. 13, 1906, that Santos-Dumont made the first officially recorded European aeroplane flight, leaving the ground for a distance of 12 yards. On November 12, of same year, he remained in the air for 21 seconds and traveled a distance of 230 yards. These feats caused a great sensation at the time.

While the Wrights were achieving fame for America, Henri Farman was busy in England. On October 26, 1907, he flew 820 yards in 52-1/2 seconds. On July 6, 1908, he remained in the air for 20-1/2 minutes.

On October 31, same year, in France, he flew from Chalons to Rheims, a distance of sixteen miles, in twenty minutes.

The year 1909 witnessed mighty strides in the field of aviation.