A Project for Flying | Page 3

yet one of
this band of truly great and worthy names still lives, and to him I am
indebted for many kind and encouraging words.
It is little besides this that I ask of you. The stock which you are
solicited to take in this enterprise is small. But enable me by your
patronage to devote myself for a time wholly to my project. See to it,

that I do not fail for want of support. Buy my little pamphlet at its
insignificant cost, ask your friends to do so; and should any of you wish
to contribute anything more to this cause, which I have made my own,
and which I am determined to push to a triumphant issue, he may be
sure that he will receive the acknowledgments of a grateful and earnest
man, who has himself devoted to it the aspirations and efforts of a long
life, and who is still willing to take all the risks of failure upon himself.
The undersigned would be pleased to have friends interested in this
subject, call upon him, when the matter will be more fully described.
ROBERT HARDLEY,
17 PERRY STREET, or
114 Sixth Ave., cor. 9th St.
[Illustration: THE AERIAL MACHINE.]

REMARKS ON THE ELLIPSOIDAL BALLOON,
PROPELLED BY THE
Archimedean Screw,
DESCRIBED AS THE NEW AERIAL MACHINE,
NOW EXHIBITING AT THE ROYAL ADELAIDE GALLERY,
LOWTHER ARCADE, STRAND.

REMARKS, &c.
The object proposed in the construction of the Machine which is here
presented to the public view, is simply to illustrate and establish the
fact, that, by a proper disposition of parts and the application of a
sufficient power, it is possible to effectuate the propulsion or guidance

of a Balloon through the air, and thus to prepare the way for the more
perfect accomplishment of this most interesting and desirable result.
In the contrivance of this design, one of the first effects aimed at was to
reduce the resistance experienced by the Balloon in its progress, which
is greater or less according to the magnitude and shape of its opposing
surface. To this intent is the peculiar form of the Balloon, which is an
Ellipsoid or prolate spheroid, the axis of which is twice its minor
diameter; in other words, twice as long as it is broad. By this
construction the opposition to the progress of the Balloon in the
direction of either end is only one half of what it would be, had it been
a Balloon of the ordinary spherical form and of the same diametrical
magnitude. For the exact determination of this proportion we are more
particularly indebted to the researches of Sir George Cayley, a
distinguished patron of the art, who, a few years back, instituted a
series of experiments with a view to ascertain the comparative amounts
of resistance developed by bodies of different forms in passing through
the air; the results of which he communicated to the world in an essay
first published in the Mechanic's Magazine, and afterwards in a
separate pamphlet. According to these experiments it appears, that the
opposition which an ellipsoid or oval (of the nature of the Balloon, if
we may so call it, in the model) is calculated to encounter in proceeding
endways through the atmosphere is only one-sixth of what a plane or
flat surface of equal area with its largest vertical section, would
experience at the same rate; while the resistance to the progress of a
globe, such as the usual Balloon, would be one third of that due to a
similar circular plane of like diameter: shewing an advantage, in respect
of diminished resistance, in favour of the former figure, to the extent
we have above described; an advantage it enjoys along with an
increased capacity for containing gas--the cubical contents of an
ellipsoid of the proportions here observed, being exactly double of
those of an ordinary Balloon of equal diameter, and consequently
competent to the support of twice the weight.
Independent of the advantage of reduced resistance in this form, there
is another of nearly, if not quite, equal importance, in the facility it
affords of directing its course; an object scarcely, if at all, attainable

with a Balloon of the usual description however powerfully invested
with the means of motion; as any one will readily perceive who has
ever noticed or experienced the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of
guiding a tub afloat in the water, compared with the condition of a boat
or other similarly constructed body, in the same element. The efficacy
of this provision and its necessity will appear more forcibly when we
observe that whenever the Balloon in the machine here described is
thrown out of its direct bearing by the shifting of the net-work which
connects it with the hoop, or by any other accident whereby its