salt," he says, "in the precedent
water doth by similitude of substance draw the salt new put in unto it."
Again, in his finding, well water is warmer in winter than summer, and
"the cause is the subterranean heat which shut close in (as in winter)
is the more, but if it perspire (as it doth in summer) it is the less."
This was Bacon the Lord. What a falling off--from the experimentalist's
point of view--from Bacon the Friar! We can fancy him watching a falcon
poised motionless in the sky, and reflecting on that problem which to
this day fairly puzzles our ablest scientists, settling the matter in a
sentence: "The cause is that feathers doe possess upward attractions."
During four hundred years preceding Lord Verulam philosophers would have
flown by aid of a broomstick. Bacon himself would have merely parried
the problem with a platitude!

At any rate, physicists, even in the brilliant seventeenth century,
made no material progress towards the navigation of the air, and thus
presently let the simple mechanic step in before them. Ere that century
had closed something in the nature of flight had been accomplished. It
is exceedingly hard to arrive at actual fact, but it seems pretty clear
that more than one individual, by starting from some eminence, could
let himself fall into space and waft himself away for some distance with
fair success and safety, It is stated that an English Monk, Elmerus,
flew the space of a furlong from a tower in Spain, a feat of the same
kind having been accomplished by another adventurer from the top of St.
Mark's at Venice.

In these attempts it would seem that the principle of the parachute
was to some extent at least brought into play. If also circumstantial
accounts can be credited, it would appear that a working model of a
flying machine was publicly exhibited by one John Muller before the
Emperor Charles V. at Nuremberg. Whatever exaggeration or embellishment
history may be guilty of it is pretty clear that some genuine attempts
of a practical and not unsuccessful nature had been made here and there,
and these prompted the flowery and visionary Bishop Wilkins already
quoted to predict confidently that the day was approaching when it
"would be as common for a man to call for his wings as for boots and
spurs."

We have now to return to the "tame goose" method, which found its best
and boldest exponent in a humble craftsman, by name Besnier, living
at Sable, about the year 1678. This mecha