e attempts which we are about to cite do not
strictly belong to the history of aerostatics.

Classic mythology tells us of Daedalus, who, escaping with his son
Icarus from the anger of Minos, in the Isle of Crete, saved himself from
the immediate evil by the aid of wings, which he made for himself and
his son, and by means of which they were enabled to fly in the air. The
wings, it appears, were soldered with wax, and Icarus, flying too high,
was struck by a ray of the sun, which melted the wax. The youth fell
into the sea, which from him derived its name of Icarian. It is possible
that this fable only symbolisms the introduction of sails in navigation.

Coming down through ancient history, we note a certain Archytas, of
Tarentum, who, in the fourth century B. C., is said to have launched
into the air the first "flying stag," and who, according to the Greek
writers, "made a pigeon of wood, which flew, but which could not
raise itself again after having fallen." Its flight, it is said, "was
accomplished by means of a mechanical contrivance, by the vibrations of
which it was sustained in the air."

In the year 66 A.D., in the time of Nero, Simon, the magician--who
called himself "the mechanician"--made certain experiments at Rome of
flying at a certain height. In the eyes of the early Christians this
power was attributed to the devil, and St. Peter, the namesake of this
flying man, is said to have prayed fervently while Simon was amusing
himself in space. It was possibly in answer to his prayers that the
magician failed in his flight, fell upon the Forum, and broke his neck
on the spot.

From the summit of the tower of the hippodrome at Constantinople, a
certain Saracen met the same fate as Simon, in the reign of the Emperor
Comnenus. His experiments were conducted on the principle of the
inclined plane. He descended in an oblique course, using the resistance
of the air as a support. His robe, very long and very large, and of
which the flaps were extended on an osier frame, preserved him from
suddenly falling.

The inclined plane probably suggested to Milton the flight of the angel
Uriel, in "Paradise Lost," who descended in the morning from heaven to
earth upon a ray of the sun, and ascended in the evening from earth to
heaven by the same means. But we cannot quote here the fancies of
pure imagination, and we will not speak of Medeus the magician, of the
enchantress Armida, of the witches of the Brocken, of the hipp