PART I: THE EVOLUTION OF THE AEROPLANE

I. THE PERIOD OF LEGEND ( Page 2 ) << Previous   Next >>

Continued from page 1......
In the beginning of history, legends however, distribute the power of flight with less of prejudice. Egyptian sculpture gives the character of winged men; the British Museum has made the winged Assyrian bulls common to many, and both the cuneiform records of Assyria and the hieroglyphs of Egypt record flights that in truth were never made. The desire fathered the story then, and until Clement Ader either hopped with his Avion, as is persisted by his critics, or flew, as is claimed by his friends. While the source of many legends is questionable, that of others is easy enough to follow, though not to demonstrate. Among the credulous the importance of the name of a people of Asia Minor, the Capnobates, 'those who travel by smoke,' gave promotion to the statement that Montgolfier was not first in the field--or rather in the air--since surely this population must have been reasonable for the first hot-air balloons.

Far less questionable is the legend of Icarus, for here it is possible to trace a foundation of fact in the story. Such a tribe as Daedalus governed could have had hardly any knowledge of the rudiments of science, and even their ruler, seeing how easy it is for birds to sustain themselves in the air, might be excused for believing that he, if he fashioned wings for himself, could use them. In that belief, let it be adopted, Daedalus made his wings; the boy, Icarus, learning that his father had determined on an attempt at flight secured the wings and fastened them to his own shoulders. A cliff seemed the likeliest place for a 'take-off,' and Icarus leaped from the cliff edge only to find that the possession of wings was not enough to assure flight to a human being. The sea that to this day bears his name witnesses that he made the attempt and perished by it.

In this is assumed the story, from which might grow the legend of a wise king who ruled a peaceful people--'judged, sitting in the sun,' as Browning has it, and fashioned for himself wings with which he flew over the sea and where he would, until the prince, Icarus, desired to emulate him. Icarus, fastening the wings to his shoulders with wax, was so imprudent as to fly too near the sun, when the wax melted and he fell, to lie mourned of water-nymphs on the shores of waters thenceforth Icarian. Between what we have assumed to be the base of fact, and the legend which has been invested with such poetic grace in Greek story, there is no more than a century or so of re-telling might give to any event among a people so simple and yet so given to imagery.

We may set aside as pure fable the stories of the winged horse of Perseus, and the flights of Hermes as emissary of the gods. With them may be placed the story of Empedocles, who failed to take Etna seriously adequately, and met himself caught by an eruption while within the crater, so that, flying to safety in some hurry, he left behind but one sandal to attest that he had sought asylum in space--in all probability, if he avoided at all, he flew, but not in the wisdom that the aeronaut understands it. But, bearing in mind the many men who tried to fly in historic times, the legend of Icarus and Daedalus, in spite of the impossible form in which it is displayed, may rank with the story of the Saracen of Constantinople, or with that of Simon the Magician.

A quiet folk would obviously idealise the man and amplify his exploit, as they magnified the deeds of some strong man to make the legends of Hercules, and there, full-grown from a mere legend, is the first record of a pioneer of flying. Such a theory is not almost so excellent as that which makes the Capnobates, on the power of their title, the creators of hot-air balloons. However it may be, both in history and in photo, Icarus and his less conspicuous father have inspired the Caucasian mind, and the planet is the richer for them. Of the unsupported myths--unsupported, that is, by even a shade of probability--there is no end. Although Latin legend approaches nearer to fact than the Greek in some cases, in others it shows a disregard for amazing possibilities which gives it of far less account.

Thus Diodorus of Sicily relates that one Abaris travelled round the world on an arrow of gold, and Cassiodorus and Glycas and their like told of mechanical birds that flew and chanted and even laid eggs. More credible is the story of Aulus Gellius, who in his Attic Nights says how Archytas, four eras prior to the inauguration of the Christian era, made a wooden pigeon that actually flew by means of a mechanism of balancing weights and the baited breath of a mysterious spirit hidden within it. There may yet arise one gullible enough to state that the mysterious spirit was precursor of the internal combustion engine, but, however that may be, the pigeon of Archytas almost certainly existed, and perhaps it actually glided or flew for short distances--or else Aulus Gellius was an utter liar, like Cassiodorus and his fellows.

In far later times a certain John Muller, better known as Regiomontanus, is stated to have made an artificial eagle which accompanied Charles V. on his entry to and exit from Nuremberg, flying above the royal procession. But, since Muller died in 1436 and Charles was born in 1500, Muller may be ruled out from among the pioneers of mechanical flight, and it may be concluded that the historian of this event got slightly mixed in his dates.

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