whose labours in determining
whether man's power is sufficient to raise his own weight Lord Rayleigh
paid a high tribute. As far back as 1866 Mr. Wenham had published a
paper on aerial locomotion, in which he shows that any imitation by
man of the far-extended wings of a bird might be impracticable, the
alternative being to arrange the necessary length of wing as a series of
aero-planes, a conception far in advance of many theorists of his time.

But there had been developments in aerostation in other lines, and it
is time to turn from the somewhat tedious technicalities of mechanical
flight and the theory or practice of soaring, to another important means
for traversing the air--the parachute. This aerial machine, long
laid aside, was to lend its aid to the navigation of the air with a
reliability never before realised. Professor Baldwin, as he was termed,
an American aeronaut, arrived in England in the summer of 1888, and
commenced giving a series of exhibitions from the Alexandra Palace with
a parachute of his own invention, which, in actual performance, seems
to have been the most perfect instrument of the kind up to that time
devised. It was said to be about 18 feet in diameter, whereas that of
Garnerin, already mentioned, had a diameter of some 30 feet, and was
distinctly top-heavy, owing to its being thus inadequately ballasted;
for it was calculated that its enormous size would have served for the
safe descent, not of one man, but of four or five. Baldwin's parachute,
on the contrary, was reckoned to give safe descent to 250 lbs., which
would include weight of man and apparatus, and reduce the ultimate fall
to one not exceeding 8 feet. The parachute was attached to the ring of a
small balloon of 12,000 cubic feet, and the Professor ascended, sitting
on a mere sling of rope, which did duty for a car.

Mr. Thomas Moy, who investigated the mechanics of the contrivance,
estimated that after a drop of 16 feet, the upward pressure, amounting
to over 2 lb. per square foot, would act on a surface of not less than
254 square feet. There was, at the time, much foolish comment on the
great distance which the parachute fell before it opened, a complete
delusion due to the fact that observers failed to see that at the moment
of separation the balloon itself sprang upward.

CHAPTER XXII. THE STORY OF THE SPENCERS.

It has been in the hands of the Spencers that the parachute, as also
many other practical details of a