Phillips’s Experimental Craft
Phillips built the strange-looking machine. It resembled, more than anything else, a huge Venetian blind; and he adopted this form so as to introduce as many narrow planes as possible. There were, as a matter of fact, fifty in the machine, each 22 feet long and only 1½ inch wide. The craft, as can be seen, was mounted on a light carriage which, having wheels fitted to it, ran round and round upon a railed track. A steam engine was used as motive power, driving a two-bladed propeller at the rate of 400 revolutions a minute. The machine was so arranged on its metals that, although the rear wheels could raise themselves and show whether the planes exercised a lift, the front one was fixed to its track—thus preventing the apparatus from leaping into the air, overturning, and perhaps wrecking itself. Tests with the machine were successful. The lifting influence of the planes, when the engine drove them forward, was sufficient to raise the rear wheels from the track; and they did so even when a weight of 72 lbs., in addition to that of the apparatus, had been placed upon the carriage. In his main object, then, Phillips succeeded; and that was to show the lifting power of his planes. But his apparatus had not the makings of a practical aeroplane. He gained for himself, nevertheless, a name that has lived and will live.
Zebra with young
Zebra with young
Old Testament
The primary Planets never eclipse one another
The primary Planets never eclipse one another
The Cook
The Cook
View of Muirray Bay from the bridge
Canadian Summer Resort From the manor-house the road runs along the edge of the bay, where picturesque schooners float or lie on their sides, according to the tide, and then on to the village of Malbaie, or Murray Bay.
Marshfield—Home of Daniel Webster
Marshfield—Home of Daniel Webste
The Manufacture of Oil
The Manufacture of Oil, drawn and engraved by J. Amman in the Sixteenth Century.
The King Sargon and his Grand Vizier
Desk in the library at Zutphen
One example at least of these fittings still exists, in the library attached to the church of S. Wallberg, at Zutphen in Holland. This library was built in its present position in 1555, but I suspect that some of the fittings, those namely which are more richly ornamented, were removed from an earlier library. Each of these desks is 9 feet long by 5 feet 6 inches high; and, as you will see directly, a man can sit and read at them very conveniently.
Member of Brotherhood of death
Member of the Brotherhood of Death, whose duty it was to accompany those sentenced to death
Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun
Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun Its rate of firing—770 shots a minute—is at least three times as rapid as that of any other machine gun.
It has only a single barrel, which, when the shot is fired, recoils a distance of three-quarters of an inch on the other parts of the gun.
This recoil sets moving the machinery which automatically keeps up a continuous fire at the extraordinary rate of 12 rounds a second.
Each recoil of the barrel has therefore to perform the necessary functions of extracting and ejecting the empty cartridge,
or bringing up the next full one and placing it in its proper position in the barrel, of cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger.
As long as the firing continues, these functions are repeated round after round in succession.
The barrel is provided with a water jacket, to prevent excessive heating;
and is so mounted that it can be raised or lowered or set at any angle, or turned horizontally to the left or to the right.
The bore is adapted to the present size of cartridges; and the maximum range is eighteen hundred yards.
The gun can therefore be made to sweep a circle upwards of a mile in radius.
Free judges
Free Judges From two Woodcuts in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster: in folio, 1552.
Properly marked black and white cat
Properly marked black and white cat
Street Conjurer Performing
Street Conjurer Performing