"Notes on Flying and Flying-Machines" 1871. (Airmail using hot-air balloons).

This text, titled "Notes on Flying and Flying-Machines," is an article written by the prominent Victorian astronomer and science popularizer Richard Anthony Proctor. It was originally published in the October 1871 edition of the Cornhill Magazine.

What makes this specific text historically interesting is its immediate proximity to a watershed moment in aviation history, along with the skepticism typical of late-19th-century scientific minds regarding heavier-than-air flight.

The "Beleaguered Parisians" Connection

On page 438, Proctor mentions:

"...and which, still more recently, the beleaguered Parisians sought earnestly, but in vain, to solve..."

This is a direct reference to the Siege of Paris (September 1870 – January 1871) during the Franco-Prussian War, which had concluded just months before this article was printed. During the blockade, Paris was entirely cut off from the rest of France. To maintain communication, the French government established the world's first regular airmail and passenger service using unguided hot-air and gas balloons (ballons montés).

While they successfully flew dozens of missions out of the city (including escaping ministers and millions of letters), the flights were entirely at the mercy of the wind. The French attempted frantically to find a way to navigate or steer these balloons back into Paris, but every experiment failed. Proctor is writing while this major geopolitical and technological drama was fresh in the public's mind.

Pre-Wright Brothers Skepticism

Writing more than three decades before the Wright brothers' successful flight in 1903, Proctor meticulously lays out the prevailing 19th-century scientific dilemma:

The Floatation vs. Navigation Paradox: The text highlights that while human beings had mastered aerial floatation (rising via the buoyancy of balloons), they were completely stuck on aerial navigation (controlling direction against the wind).

The Vacuum Balloon Myth: On page 439, Proctor debunks a popular speculative concept of the era: constructing a rigid, ultra-light vessel completely exhausted of air (a vacuum balloon) to create lift, rightly calling it "a thing wholly impossible" due to atmospheric pressure crushing the structure.

It serves as a remarkable snapshot of Victorian science wrestling with the physics of flight at a time when steering through the air was still considered an almost intractable problem.

14mm0 x 220mm

Part of a periodical. Complete article, pages 438 - 451.

R600