Name/Title
The Problem of Aviation, Essay by Juliette A. OwenEntry/Object ID
AM2013.3.40Scope and Content
The Problem of Aviation, Essay by Juliette A. Owen. Identical to 13.3.44 but with longer introduction about the first sighting of an airplane.Context
The Avian Monster.
One moonlight night a group of people on their way home from an entertainment, glancing upward to the comment on the state of the heavenly bodies, gave a simultaneous cry of amazement and alarm as they beheld a huge winged body, larger than any known citizen of the air, passing slowly through the sky between themselves and the moon, and still dimly visible, a monstrous shape, till it gradually faded into the depth of the firmament. At the same time, a wildly leaping pillar of fire sprang up from the house-top in a distant part of the city-whether kindled there by the Creature, or raised in terror against it, could not, of course, be conjectured.
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Professor Eastin was an ardent scientist, who constantly pursued Nature toward her remotest sanctuaries in the hope to corner her and wrest away at least a recognizable portion of some hoarded secret. His wife, who during the honeymoon, "Whiter thou goest I will go," later interpolated an unvarnished negative into the reckless phrase.
For a long time the scientist had vehemently desired to fly, and the household was groaning under its burden of misconceived flying-machines that had collapsed or dived or gone sideways, upside down or backward. The winter vegetables in the cellar were crowded to the wall by working models, that would not work, of balloons and airships and
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"Of course, Ruth, said the professor, with a severity intended to disarm, or rather intimidate, critizcism, I had not expected an entirely perfect pair of wings at the first effort. Flight was not evolved in Nature's laboratory until generation on generation of Avian creatures had wrestled with the problem. That their struggles upward were instinctive does not alter the fact of the struggles, and of the gradual development of the wing of Ornithology. Science is exact and cannot fail when one has guessed the secret of her intention. "The flight of the bird dates back to the aspirations of the lizard. Feathers, as you know, are
"Not dead, but speechless, "Ruthie," responded her husband cheerfully, "and as me where I have not been, and I can tell you in less time: thirdly, I should say I was lost-the streets are not numbered and the sirmarks have been obliterated. Astronomers ought to take this matter in hand and see that the heavens are properly laid out, if they would go over the ground, so to speak, themselves, they would quickly see what is needed. There should be stationed here and there certain inflated signpost of some material that could withstand the action of the elements, and nicely calculated with regard to the pressure of the air and attraction of gravitation, so as to remain for an indefinite period in the position to which they were projected. But come down stairs- I haven't had a bite all day, and while i restore my inner bird, you shall hear the whole truth
with a thump on a neighboring roof. With but a momentary pause for the adjustment of a dislocated air-cushion, the traveller again took wing, and this time, without pause of incident, passed onward and upward, till, a dark speck in the sky, he faded gradually from the sight of the haggard watcher. Hour after hour she searched the heavens with growing anxiety. Daylight waned and darkness descended, with still no sign of the vanished man, and again on the roof, she took up her lonely and harrowing vigil by the light of the pale-faced moon.
Long after mid-night, when that luminary was declining toward the West, she leaped to her feet with a low cry, as a dark object at an awful distance in the heavenly expanse, passed between her and the moon, and journeyed slowly upward, a dim shape against the moonlit sky.
Aghest, she watched him laboringLexicon
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