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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1907)
44 THE SUNDAY OREGOSTIAN. POItTULJCD. JJLNUARY SO, i901 Fpiis Problem Has Trou bled. Men Fox More Than Two Thou sand Years. OIP" wisv I Oil I (kiT 71 1 Ynventions That Have i '' " M ,s- , " I Xed Up to Santos-Du- TfTt? - 1 Fr" ' - , . - . V r- I mont's Achievements. 1 ' yljJK 1 U, A' MA v&wV5 --1l L - K l tfe(f ;fev7 5 . croN - 1M&LZYSLA5T iffl ' ' , : -Mr"' i 1 SANTOS DUMONT is tlie first m&n to lxav performed aerial flight with a. eelf-projeIlMl machine heavier Uian tile air Which It Olsplacea. Ho has wived a problem which has caused Inventive cendu a to burn Hie xnldnislit oil and toss retlealy upon their couches since cen- tutfes before the lawn ot the christian ra. " During three millenniums or more jnWtloui men have broken their hearts and their head seelcins the srre&t goal Which this Tear ee a Brazilian haa won within the past ffew weeks. Althouprh the balloon Is commonly re varded aa the father of the aerodrome, history hears It out that man took up first the more difficult problems Involved in the latter mechanism. Nature gave to the andent Inventor the births of the air an models after which to build. But the ancient for many centuries regarded the ability of feathered creatures to fly a supernatural srlXt. first nylng Machine 400 b. o. The first mechanical flying: machine of 4"tory tw&s the &ttlflfma-l ptseon of A rchytas, a Greek geometrician, who flourlshtd abont ICO years before Christ. . The historian. Aulus Gelllus. says that "Axchytas constructed a wooden pigeon tvhlch could fly "by means of mechanical Dover and an aura spirit" This "aura," accordln k to the Q reek n, was a, force emanating from all living- thlnrs, which It surrounded like an atmosphere. Some Ot our recent Inventors ot new religions have applied the term to what others call "animal manetlani." According to fuller descriptions the buoyancy of Archytaa' pigeon was effected by majrnets, the pro- pelling power only -being an occult force. One writer stated that although the machine could fly. "It could not r&tse itself up aaln" if It tell. During the reign of Nero a man flow high in the air. but lost hla life In the descent, according to Antonlus Byerltnk. who gave xonic description of the wings and Apparatus and attributed the violent death of this pioneer Darius Green to the fact that his evil genius suddenly became dtBpleased while he was aloft and 'Suf fered him to fall. This warning appears to have been effective, for not until the- lifteenth century does history record another actual flying machine. diaries V and the Artificial Eagle. An artificial eagle, which flew out to meet the Emperor Charles V and accom pany him back to town, is said by several historians to have been constructed avt Kttremburg by Johann Muller, known also as Reglomontanus a German bishop, astronomer and mathematician. About the same period "a certain monk named Klmerus flew about a furlong: from the top of a tower in Spain." Another of tbese early experimenters Is said to have ttempted flight from St Mark's steeple. In Venice, and still another at Nurem burg. while "by means of a pair of wings a person named Dante, of Perouse. was enabled to fly, but while amusing the citizens with hla flight he fell on top of St. Mary' Church and broke his thlsh." Leonardo fla Vlncl practiced flying suc cessfully, according to Cuperus' "Excel lence of Man." How the celebrated Ital ian s-rtlat, musician and mechanician accomplished this feat four centuries ago Is not, however, stated. Bustec, am bassador of Ferdinand I at Constantino ple, aim epeaic of a Turk- in that city who attempted to fly..- Soaring MacliincB or the Sixteenth Centorr. John "W ilk tun. Bishop of Chester, a. celebrated English scientist of two centuries and a half ago, said: "I have heard from credible testimony that one of our nation hath succeeded so far in this experiment that he was able, by the help of wings, in men a running pace to step constantly (off the ground) 3 0 yards at-a time." This appears to be the first augrarestion of the soaring ma Chine, Buch as used In recent years by Llllenthal, Chanute . and the Wright brothers. A flterht with wlng-a. conslatlnjar of four rectangular surfaces, one at each end ol two rods passing over the shoulders of the operator, was made by Besnler, a locksmith of Sable, France, according: to the Journal des Savans, 1678. Besnier. It was further stated, progressively raised himself from one height to another until he reached the top of a house, from which he passed over the neighboring houses. H could thus cross a river of considerable breadth. His first pair of wings were purchased by a Mr. Baldwin of Oulbre. who was said to have used them with remarkable success. The world's flrSt Hying machine patent was Issued in 1709 to Bartholo mew Lourenco de Gunman . friar of Lisbon. He presented to the King of Portugal an address representing; hlm- Belf as having Invented a swift flying machine capable of carrying: paasen- a-ers and request Ins" prohibition aa-alnst all Imitators. The kinK. dellsrhted that Ills subject had won the great goal issued a decree ordering "the pain of death" against any one who should Infrlnffe on the friar, who was also re warded wltii &n annual pension oX 600,- rein, the Urst DrofeasorsMD In the i IV - ' ' - '" II lfiH UnlYerslty Of Colmtjra and the nrst vacancy tn the College of Barcelona. In the absence of wind the sail of this machine was to be filled by a pair of bellows assisted by two powerful mag- net9 and several pieces of amber. How long this wily friar enjoyed his pen sion and patronage is not stated, nor does history state what th kins; did to him after discovering the extent to which hla majesty had been "buncoed." First Ralloon Carried a. M.ensrerie. Students of mechanical flight shortly afterward paused to behold at last a vehicle which could mount the air to a great heigrht and carry human frelTht Ions distances. Somewhat extravagant suggestions of an airship on the bal loon principle had been first made by Rojrer Bacon, the celebrated -Knglish philoaoptiur of five centuries aro. who proposed "a larfre. hollow Klobe of cop per" to be "filled with ethereal air or liquid fire and then launched from some elevated point Into the atmos phere." About four centuries later Francis Lana, a Jesuit, had further proposed to prepare four hollow globes of thinnest copper, each 20 feet in diameter and suspending a boat for the aeronaut. But during the stormy days Just preceding the French revolution there dwelt at Avignon Stephen Mont- Brolfler. who had observed that a llsht paper bag filled with smoke would rise In the air. He concluded that If the bag: were made large enough it would not only rise of itself, but lift one or more men. So he and his brother Jo seph set towork to experiment with sev eral large paper envelopes In the shape of the "balloon" a short-necked vessel used In chemistry. They at last perfected an immense bapr of linen lined with paper," Its parts "joined together by means of button; and holes." It meas ured 117 feet around and had a ca pacity of 23.000 cubic feet. To the great dellfrht of their countrymen they sent it high Into the air, but did not Photographing in Colors One of the Pine Trts Results Achieved Are Beautiful, but the Process la Very Difficult.' A, F, Collins In New Tork Tribune. OP the thousands of photographers, 1 amateurs and professionals alike, who have viewed with unalloyed pleasure the beautiful, fleeting; Images produced In the colors of nature on the Srround srlass screens of their cameras probably not one since the beslnntnsr of the art a century ago has tailed in the desire that these might be perma nently fixed and preserved. Vary different. Indeed, are the final prints obtained, for instead ot the tints and shades produced by the exquisite are only the a-raduatlons of llarht and snaue proaucea oj wnue ana DiacK, ana these are therefore colorless, for white is the result of superimposing: the pri mary colors, while black; la the absence Of lig:ht. The great desire to photograph di rect in colors, and 'which has come to be known as color photography, is aa old as 'the making; of pictures by llgrht itself, for Niepce, who was one of the first, if not the very first, who experi enced the joy of seeing the marvelous pictures nature could depict with the aid of a lens and lig-ht upon a srround glass screen, became so Imbued with Its significance and hla own ability to fix the fugitive Imare that he declared to a friend that he would "soon toe able to reproduce his lmaa'e as he saw hlm- eelf in the mirror." . When we consider that this startling statement was made by the bold Nlepce before a method had been found for per manently fixing the images on a, photo- graphlc plate, as well. as la view of the fact that color photography is a recent accomplishment, it would seem that this pioneer was carried away with an op timism that must have ' been Induced by the hypnotlo 'beauty of what he saw and hts irreat desire to capture It a worthy ambition. JDoubtlesa tills hum intense desire, tills attempt to mount with It. Finally, however. Stephen Slontarolner appeared in Paris, where the Royal Academy requested , him to repeat his experi ment. He at once constructed a still larger balloon, 72 feet high and 41 feet in diameter. In September, 1783,- it was placed over a pit contalnfntr burn ing chopped straw and wool and was thus inflated in the presence of King Louis XVL. and the royal family at Versailles. In its basket of wicker work it carried a sheep, a cock and a belief that there must be some solution of the problem, has kept persons seeking to solve It from that day to this, a period of 80 years, and yet it is only within the last 12 months that a really practical method or color photogTaphy haa leen put upon the American market. To follow in sequence the most Impor tant steps tli at have caused this great advance to be made we must so back, a.1- most to tho time of Nlepce's prediction. Photographs had been obtained by the chemical action of light on the salts of silver, tout on exposing to the light they promptly faded away. After a ions search -Sir John Herschel discovered1 that hyposulphite of soda would fix them against the further effects of light. This brought photography to a. working basis. though It was not yet a commercially practical art for It reaulred an exposure of from six to ten hours. Xt was, Daguerre, whose name will be forever linked with those beautiful tm- ages he produced upon the surfaces or highly polished silver plates, and known a couple of generations ago as daguer reotypes, who reduced the exposure to eight or ten minutes. Then Talbot, a contemporary of Da&uerte. invented the glass plate negative, which enabled him to obtain as many positive prints on sil ver paper as be desired with a single ex posure of the subject, a wonderful process that gave photography Its first great Im petus. So much for monochrome photography, and now for -color photography. Every OHO knows that it was Sir Isaac Newton who analyzed sunllit by passing ft bfiam of. light through a glass prism, splitting It up Into its original component parts, as he supposed, of seven colors. Then Thomas Young, a later physicist, deduced the conclusion that there were only three primary colors. Instead of seven, and ' that these colors were red. green . and violet. By experimenting he found that If red light and green light were superimposed on each other they would make yellow light; that green and i violet would produce purple llfht, said. , duck to a height of 1500 feet, and then let i lit kb Burprisea creatures gently down upon the earth. A still larger balloon was soon afterward construct ed by Montgolfier and under the open ing he hung an iron brasier into which he could introduce fuel to keep the vehicle afloat. On November 21. 1783. to the great delight of the people of Paris, this balloon arose, carrying .with it two Parisian gentlemen longing for a new sensation. They rose 3000 feet and remained in the air 25 minutes and further, that red, green and violet light when blended, would result In white light. Finally, by varying the' proportions of the colors, any tint or shade, however delicate, could be produced. This knowledge was the first active aa- vance looking toward the realization of color photography. The next important move was made toy James Clerk Maxwell. In the early , '60s. when be succeeded in demonstrating the truth of Young's color theory by obtaining a color record on neg atives of a bright bit of ribbon by photo graphing it three times first through a red trlasa or rnloi nrrMn. then throueh a green glass, and lastly through a violet glass. The' three-part negatives thus ob tained were, of course, without color, but when, positives on glass were made Jfrom them also without color and the picture were projected upon a screen by means of a proper lantern having: red, green and violet glasses interposed to supply the color, the ribbon was reproduced in Its original tints and shades. 1 In this country In the past 20 years Frederic Ives has done much to perfect the three-color process, which has at tained a wide popularity in the graphic arts. His Invention consists of cameras for making triple negatives simultaneous ly and different opticaM devices for view ing direct, as well as for projecting the pictures on a screen. - In any case, how- ever, It Is necessary to have three posi tives on glass, one for each of the pri mary colors, and to interpose the color screens between these and the light. This is what was meant by the term "color record", mentioned above,, for these pictures on glass are not colored, but merely represent color, and. just as a phonograph cylinder must be placed in 'a phonograph before it can be made to re produce the sounds previously Impressed upon it. so these color records must be placed In a fcrlnd of stereoscope or a masrlc lantern before It will select and repro- duce the colors. ' Beautiful ;'as.. are theee color photo graphs, it is not the ideal color photog raphy the flxlnjg X nature' a colors on a landed safely five miles from where they had started. The first American balloon was flown a few months later at Philadelphia by a Dr. Rittenhouse and a Mr. Hopklnson. They . connected together four balloons inflated with hydrogen gas and which lifted a man into the air. Taking alarm, he cut a hole in one of the envelopes after he had risen several hundred feet. The hydrogen balloon has since de veloped in all sorts of forms and shapes. It was soon recogrnlzed. however, that sheet of sensitized paper as In ordinary photography. ' Like wireless telegraphy and mechanical flight. many schemes have been evolved to produce the desired result, but, like the foregoing processes proposed, have been found sadly want ing. -The very latent development In color photography, and one that eeems to come Well Wlttlln the limits exacted by the photographic cult, has recently been -brought out in Germany. Tn this new process throe negatives are made, one through red glass, another tiirougll green glass and the third tnrougn violet glass. Having obtained the tripli cate negatives.- the- preparation of the pa per comes next. The first step is to cover a sheet of paper with a colorless solution that turns blue on exposure to the light. The paper thus coated Is placed In an ordinary printing frame over the negative that was made through the red color screen for blue is the complementary color of red: the frame Is set In the sun light and printed until the paper Is a bright blue, when it is taken out. fixed and washed. When the print Is dry it Is Covered With a colorless solution that turns yellow in the light: again It Is printed, this time over the negative made through the violet glass; again it is Axed, washed and dried, and then for the last time It Is covered with a colorless solu tion that turns crimson in the light, when It is printed over the negative taken through the green color screen. Atfer being, flxed, washed and dried the resulting picture is a beautiful photo Bra phle- print In natural colors. ' Xheae color prints are not so easy to make as the ordinary velox prints, nor as durable as silver prints, but the beauty of the pictures and the simplicity of the process certainly commend them to the amateur who practices photography for the sake of art. - Illowlng the Furniture. An Irishman, whose wife waa fond of moving" from one- houae to another, was met by a friend the other morning- while walking- behind a van load of household eroods and saluted with: "Hallo. Allele! Shitting again? 'Where might you he go- lng this 'time?" "I don't know, begorra," said Mick. "X'na. followlriK the fumirmra to flad out!" the ball-shaped balloon was the sport ot the wind and that it was necessary to elongate It. One of the nrst balloon propelled by niauhlnery was levisiel about 182U by Rufijs Forter( an American, who bunt it aa a model about 1823. It was clgar- shaped and driven by a srrew. A lurger one Tvlth a car for paaMnser.t wa ex hibited In New York and Washington about 1835-40. The newspapers described It as flying rapidly. In W52 Henri Gifford. a Frenchman, attaehed to a ciKar-hnwd balloon, 14 feet Ions, a 4ii3-notinu steam engine which drove the propeller, and in ISM Tissandler, another Frenchman, was the first to use an electric motor for propelling balloons. The value of steer able balloons for warfare was at once recoplzed by the French War Depart ment, -which in 1SS3 built the first navi- srable war balloon. "Ia France," Who? 1174-pound electric motor drove it 14 miles an hour. But with the advent or the automobile came motors mora and more compact. In 1900 Count Zeppelin built his monster dirigible balloon 430x39 with a 32-horse- power gasoline motor. Then came Santos- Dumont, who was shown to the PirlslanS his ten or a dozen dirigible balloons driven by compact s-asollne motors. In one of these he circled the EllTel Tower on July 12 M, and since then Das performed many feats well known to the public Mis srreatet rival in the perfection of dirlR-lfcrte balloonn ha beon M. Julllot. who built the "Iebaudy" airship contain- !n 80,000 cubic feet of gas and a 40- horaepower engine, the whole airship weighing &T0O pounds. Xlie French gov. ernment, aaaured of the micceas of this dirigible balloon, haa Just completed what Ig almost a duplicate, and Is said to have ordered a fleet of eleht or ten similar roaohinea. Our Army ha. so far- son. no further than the "kite balloon" bought some time ago In Germany, ii. Julliot, by the way, has been commissioned to build the much-heralded Wellman airship. Reaction Against Balloon Machines. The practicability of the aerodrome without buoyant eras was . denied by Santm-Dumont during; the Xarteley ex- neriments. But by 1903 a decided reaction against balloon airships had set In among the aeronauts of Paris, who realized that the limit of their speed had been about reached and that the great gas bags were too unwieldy, too expensive and too much the prey of the wind. About that time the French commenced to turn their thoughts to the Langley idea and Santos- Duinont himself made a compromise by reducing the gas In hla machines and adding aeroplanes. And now he appears in the. limelight as the chief disciple and successor of Langley. From the success of the Montgolflers In ViSi until the Langley experiments the advocates of purely mechanical flisrht did not - lose heart, and the world heard of many aerodromes which, however, never flew. Notable among these was the "aerial steam carriage" of one Henson an Englishman, alleged about 1841 to have Whistle Heard forTwenty Miles Steam Siren ia East St. Louto That Tells the Time to 100,000 People. St. Xouls Post-Dlwpatch. East St. I-ouis now ha the biggest steam whistle In tho world. It is a re- markable triple machine with three voices a three chime whistler, whose capacity for the annihilation of peace ia extraor- dlnary. This whistle . MOWS a tcn-mlle blast at half-steam and with favorable wind bae a;dlsturblnK power of 20 miles. It costs $1 every, time It ia blown. But this great whistle is not all nol.sc. It is an Idea in economy, a whistle trust, a noise combine- Almost all the little noises, . yelps, toote and whines ot sim- liar mechanical throats In East St Louis are now dumb. The giant whistle trust whistles for them.' The independent whis tles have to whistle off time to be heard. Within 'the range of this whistle are said to be 100.000 people who tell time by It. This remarkable whistle has been in stalled by-the Bast St. Louis & Suburban Electric Railway Company at the Belt power-house. State-and Twentieth streets, where the company's machine shops and car barne are located. The greatest modern 6lren comprises three whistles. The' largest ia almost six feet In height and nearly as big around aa a man. On each side of the main one Is a smaller whistle. The three units com bine to make one noiee with which even Babanne, miles away, across the Missis sippi River, in the west end of St. 2ouls, la well acquainted. This big triple whistle was also set up at the railway company's electrical gene rating station "as a feature." It Is con nected with an electric clock, which is regulated by the .Government standard time sent' out from Washington on the dropping of a ball at exactly noon each day. The electric cloclc which, connects with f the whistle te guaranteed not to vary Ave seconds in time a year, and the clock 8 record- to . date is satisfactory. . Almost Invented a steam engine of extreme light ness which was to wave the machine's great bat-lilc wings after It had been launched down an inclined plane. Many Englishmen enthusiastically believed that Henson had solved tho problem of flight without buoyant gas. but the contrivance never flew. Our first flying machine patent was is sued in 1S44 to Muzlo Muzzi. an Italian. In the next 50 years 1W airship patents were granted by our Government, the most remarkable being that of Wulff. a Frenchman, for propelling balloons with condors harnessed to a horizontal wheet which was to be turned by a pilot, ac cording to the desirable direction. Lanjrley's "Whirling Tablr." There should be no foregetUng of 11m fact that there was no exact science of mechanical flight until Professor Lang- ley gave It to the world. In 18S6 when he commenced to study the problem ther was not even any reliable literature to aid him. "I went to work then to And out for myself, and in my own way. what amount of mechanical power was requisite to sustain a given weight in Ir and make If advance at a aiven speed," he ofoce wrote. He commence)! lifs work while director of the Allegheny Observatory with aeroplanes and stuffed birds attached to arms of a whirling mast revolved by a powerful steam en- glne. The aeroplanes traveled at the rate of nearly 100 miles an hour about a circle -SO -feet in fllamftfr. tills aDnaratus t o ih Smithsonian, after taKln c ha rare of that Institution in 1887, and In IS? J lie gave to thft world the facts on which later experiments In mpchanicul riiffht have been based. At tlie time these experiments began tji only ex isting mechanism which could sustain itself in the air for even a. few uet--onds was a. toylike modnl nrta.de by 1 e - . naud, a. Frenchman, the motion power being" twisted rubber bands, in May, 189fi. Ingley's steam aerodrome flew 2000 feet over the Potomac in one min ute ana a lit. I T. The following Novem ber It flew three-quurters of a mile. In 1898 the Army Board of Ordnance and Fortifications allotted to Professor Lrfmpley S 50.000 for the construction f ai ger aerodrome, capable of t arry In ur a man, and Professor Langley offered his services to the board without com- pensatlon. He scoured both continents for a. suitable gasoline engine, and nn -n II v hftrl t-t l-i 1 1 1 1 1 Vitst nwn u.-hl-li weighed two and one-fifth pounds per horsepower, or one-half the welgrht of the lightest enRine thouebt possible bv the best engine builders of the world, lie completed the new machine, and in August, 190.1. its ouarter-sizc model, launched dlr"-tly on the face of th ind. flew -on Bn e-v-en lceel with perfect balnncr. Later while the f i il Sized machine was speeding along th i i launching: track, with the engineer in hie seat, tlie fron: caught on the de fective launcnlng pparatun, and the aerodrome was pr clpltated into tlie Potomac, the machine nev.cr having had chance to fly. P-ofessor Lanplpy roll Into f 11. liea. 1 th with hfm t tlit grave the assurance that te machine when repaired and givon K perfect launching: erear -would fly. But whi 1 he had been experimenting other gen iuses had been at work. Soaring Machines. The nearest approach to human fiinht of modern times had been made In 1894 by Otto Llllenthal, of Berlin, wi-.o Imitated the buzzard by aid of a soar- ina machine on which he was able t. "slWe"down hill, with his feet above ground, fifty yardB or so at a time. But in 1S96 he met his death while thus experimenting:. Meanwhile. A. M . Herlng, of Chicago, had taken up the soaring experiments In this country, and in 1896 he was engaged by Octave Chanute to Improve upon Llllenthal's aeroplanes. ' Experiments with varied apparatus -were made near Chicago in the Summer and Autumn of that year. One of these machines had movable wingrn. used in sustaining: equilibrium, but not for propulsion. Since that time Messrs. Wilbur and Orvtlle Wright, ot Dayton. O., with improved machines, have dared to perform feats which neither Iilienthal nor ChaiMlte attempt ed. But all of these were soaring: rather than flying machines. Although aeroplanes not buoyed tip by gas, they had no artificial motors, and their prob lem was not as complicated as that of the aerodromes of Iangley and San- tos Dumont. JOHN ELFRETH W ATKINS. Washington. D. C Jan. 5. every man looks at his watch when tlie first blast is sounds ny tlie tIc whistle ftt 7 O'clock" In the morning. Almost every housewife In East St. Louis glances at her 4 mantel timepiece when the siren wooes noon the second blast of the day. The third blast its an hour later and the last Is at in the evening. Clmma. Milwaukee Sentinel. In -Mad an1 nMrr T prnw And waning- I find Is my sight, X am gradually coming to know That It's bent to alaclc up in tho fie lit. And I find. as. the yeara keep a-crcepl nt And my age la what many call ripe. That I care more for dozing and .sleeping And the pleasure I get from my pipe. I care net for drramlni; romantir. For that passed away with npy youth ; I have naught ot the manner pedantic, My tonjrue I kH;p silent, foruooth. Let youngsters Just turned out of college Bear iti palm. I was onee of their, typt; But now' X -don't prate of my knowledce, I cogitate here with my pipe. There iin't much left when a follow Is whitening fast o'er the brow. And ho getn eiLxy jcolne and mellow A difTTence 'twlxt Then and the Now! I Pine not, nor am I regretful For lost hopes I'm not of that stripe ) And when I get restless and fretful, It's me to my chummy old pipe! le Profundus. Ethel Edwards. I have been down with sorrow in the dep. Where never a ray of light can pierce the K loom, t Where Is no respite, and where falls no sleep Whre 1 Llfe'l tomb. There falls a long monotony of tears Fall swift and slow. . X hv beTi Ions' wltb sot low . . . It the day Should sver dawn when I s.m free from pain, And lov lead xently back to life again. Can X foraet that 1 have passed thl wayT A A'