At length, in 1863, thanks to the efforts
of Nadar, a society of "heavier than air" was founded in Paris.
There the inventors could experiment with the machines, of which
many were patented. Ponton d'Amecourt and his steam helicopter, La
Landelle and his system of combining screws with inclined planes
and parachutes, Louvrie and his aeroscape, Esterno and his mechanical
bird, Groof and his apparatus with wings worked by levers. The
impetus was given, inventors invented, calculators calculated
all that could render aerial locomotion practicable. Bourcart,
Le Bris, Kaufmann, Smyth, Stringfellow, Prigent, Danjard, Pomes
and De la Pauze, Moy, Penaud, Jobert, Haureau de Villeneuve,
Achenbach, Garapon, Duchesne, Danduran, Pariesel, Dieuaide,
Melkiseff, Forlanini, Bearey, Tatin, Dandrieux, Edison, some with
wings or screws, others with inclined planes, imagined, created,
constructed, perfected, their flying machines, ready to do their
work, once there came to be applied to thereby some inventor a motor
of adequate power and excessive lightness.

This list may be a little long, but that will be forgiven, for it is
necessary to give the various steps in the ladder of aerial
locomotion, on the top of which appeared Robur the Conqueror. Without
these attempts, these experiments of his predecessors, how could the
inquirer have conceived so perfect an apparatus? And though he had
but contempt for those who obstinately worked away in the direction
of balloons, he held in high esteem all those partisans of "heavier
than air," English, American, Italian, Austrian, French--and
particularly French--whose work had been perfected by him, and led
him to design and then to build this flying engine known as the
"Albatross," which he was guiding through the currents of the
atmosphere.

"The pigeon flies!" had exclaimed one of the most persistent adepts
at aviation.

"They will crowd the air as they crowd the earth!" said one of his
most excited partisans.

"From the locomotive to the aeromotive!" shouted the noisiest of all,
who had turned on the trumpet of publicity to awaken the Old and New
Worlds.

Nothing, in fact, is better established, by experiment and
calculation, than that the air is highly resistant. A circumference
of only a yard in diameter in the shape of a parachute can not only
impede descent in air, but can render it isochronous. That is a fact.

It is equally well known that when the speed is great the work of the
we