was taken of his experiments; the age was one in which he would
be regarded rather as a freak exhibitor than as a serious
student, and possibly, considering his origin and the sale of
his first apparatus to such a client, he regarded the matter
himself as more in the nature of an amusement than as a
discovery.

Borelli, coming at the end of the century, proved to his own
satisfaction and that of his fellows that flapping wing flight
was an impossibility; the capabilities of the plane were as yet
undreamed, and the prime mover that should make the plane
available for flight was deep in the womb of time. Da Vinci's
work was forgotten--flight was an impossibility, or at best such
a useless show as Besnier was able to give.

The eighteenth century was almost barren of experiment. Emanuel
Swedenborg, having invented a new religion, set about inventing
a flying machine, and succeeded theoretically, publishing the
result of his investigations as follows:--

'Let a car or boat or some like object be made of light material
such as cork or bark, with a room within it for the operator.
Secondly, in front as well as behind, or all round, set a
widely-stretched sail parallel to the machine forming within a
hollow or bend which could be reefed like the sails of a ship.
Thirdly, place wings on the sides, to be worked up and down by a
spiral spring, these wings also to be hollow below in order to
increase the force and velocity, take in the air, and make the
resistance as great as may be required. These, too, should be
of light material and of sufficient size; they should be in the