Will The Machine Fly?

Mr. Hiram S. Maxim, the eminently practical improver of fireanns and bead of the gnnmaking firm of Maxim & Nordenfelt, is positive he has invented a flying machine and will soon have it in successful operation. He declares that ie can bring. it to a speed of 100 miles er hour, transport passengere and light reight over land and sea, and revolutionze warfare by dropping bombs of dynamite on the enemy. In short he has got up a war kite. May be he has and inay be he hasn't, nt his argument is at any rate ingenieus and interesting. He begins with ths aradox which has puzzled so many naturalists, that tho larger a bird is as a role the smaller is its sweep of wing in roportion. Thus, if the condor had wings proportioned to those of the humming bird they would ineasure some ixty feet from tip to tip. Even the wild goose would have a sweep of ten or iwelve feet. This has led to wild calcuatious as to the muscular forcé exerted y birds. The first calculator credited ,he wild gooee with ;i force eqoal to 200 ïorse power. Thelatesl onemakesifcon;wentieth of one horse power. Mr. iaxim says tb . ■ rtc.l by the goose in flying is no greater than that xerted by a, jack rabbit in running up hill. "They differ like Boston," as the old saying goes. On his own basis Mr. daxim began two years ago to experiaent, having rented a large park in Cent, England, for that purpose. His jeneral plan is that of a rapidly revolvng steel shaft to which fans or wings are attached, on the principie of the screw propeller. Af ter trying fifty differnt series of screws he has obtained a orm, he says, which will carry 133 )ounds for each horse power and the machinery besides, and in starting will ide up the air one foot for each four■ecn feet of ad vanee, jast as a largo )ird rises from the ground in a long piral. His completed machine, with uel and steering apparatus, weighs abcut 6,000 ponnds, and can develop, he hinks, some 250 horse power. He calis t the "Ariator," and expecte to fly in a ew weeks.