hough the flying machine yet
remains to be invented:--

"I will now," says the Friar, "mention some of the wonderful works of
art and nature in which there is nothing of magic, and which magic
could not perform. Instruments may be made by which the largest ships,
with only one man guiding them, will be carried with greater velocity
than if they were full of sailors. Chariots may be constructed that
will move with incredible rapidity, without the help of animals.
Instruments of flying may be formed, in which a man, sitting at his
ease and meditating on any subject, may beat the air with his
artificial wings, after the manner of birds. A small instrument may be
made to raise or depress the greatest weights. An instrument may be
fabricated by which one man may draw a thousand men to him by force and
against their will; as also machines which will enable men to walk at
the bottom of seas or rivers without danger." It is possible that Friar
Bacon derived his knowledge of the powers which he thus described from
the traditions handed down of former inventions which had been
neglected and allowed to fall into oblivion; for before the invention
of printing, which enabled the results of investigation and experience
to be treasured up in books, there was great risk of the inventions of
one age being lost to the succeeding generations. Yet Disraeli the
elder is of opinion that the Romans had invented printing without being
aware of it; or perhaps the senate dreaded the inconveniences attending
its use, and did not care to deprive a large body of scribes of their
employment. They even used stereotypes, or immovable printing-types,
to stamp impressions on their pottery, specimens of which still exist.
In China the art of printing is of great antiquity. Lithography was
well known in Germany, by the very name which it still bears, nearly
three hundred years before Senefelder reinvented it; and specimens of
the ancient art are yet to be seen in the Royal Museum at Munich.[5]

Steam-locomotion by sea and land, had long been dreamt of and
attempted. Blasco de Garay made his experiment in the harbour of
Barcelona as early as 1543; Denis Papin made a similar attempt at
Cassel in 1707; but it was not until Watt had solved the problem of the
steam-engine that the idea of the steam-boat could be developed in
practice, which was done by Miller of Dalswinton in 1788. Sages and
poets have frequently foreshadowed inventions of great soci