The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 11, 1898, Page 20

20 “THE SAN-FRANCISCO CALL, SU NDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1898. UNCLE SAM WILL TRY AND CONSTRUCT AN AIRSHIP The Government Has Set Aside $25,000 for the Use of Professor Langley of the Smithsonian Institution, and Has Commissioned Him to Do His Best to Construct a Successful Air Ship. Professor Langley Ranks Among the Highest of the Experimenters Who: Are Trying to Solve the Problem of Aerial Navigation, PROFESSOR S. P. LANGLEY’'S AERODROME This flying machine is said to represent the greatest advance toward aerial navigation that -has been invented to date. IN FLIGHT.—From d Photograph. Professor Langley will use it to United States Government, for which Congress has just advanced him $25,000. ASHINGTON, Dec. 3.—The Government has given Professor Lang- a monopoly for the building of a flying machine. General cely will send out to-morrow letters to all applicants in which he quotes the language of the appropriation, the important words of which are ing machine be r construction, development and testing of a fly- sor Langley, the expenditure to ignal Officer of the arm; v to the credit of Professor Langley, who is ex- construction of a machine that will carry a direc- Major Crozier, the expert of the War Department, pec tive said y that Professor Langley's model at a test on the Potomae near Quantico had actually flown two miles, raising itself and moving horizont- )' 7 until the motive power had been exhausted. Major Crozier said fur- ther “The problem now is to construct the airship, the model having done the work proposed fc t. I do not »w, of course, what the result of the ater experiment will be. What seems to be required is the storage of a er amount of force within the least weight. In other words, there must be an intelligent fc > in the machine for its direction.” s HE United States Government eled by inventive genius and indomit- started building experiment- able enterprise. Nothing that man has 1g machines, 1 in that achieved in scientific and mechanical sociated facts lies a ra- ways has ever worked so profound a »nal expectation that naviga- revolution in the world as will quickly tion of the air will be a practical real- attend aerial navigation. ization of the comparatively near At the last session of Congress an future. appropriation of $25,000 was given in When a man first safely travels a aid of experiments in aerial navigation, few miles in aflyingmachine, regardless and it was expressly stipulated that it of alr currents, the realization will have Should be expended by Professor & C. Langley of the Smithsonian Institution through the Chief Signal Officer. The other day this money was placed at come, for the further distance to com- mercial practicability will soon be trav- 0CO00 0000000000000 0000 COCO0O0 FAVORITE HEROES OF THE Special to The Sunday Call. 1 little electric machine which tattoos | a picture in a single day that would require weeks by the old hand process | Mr. O'Reilly had never seen a bat | picture tattooed, but being heart he told the seaman v prompt- ly that he would illustrate him in col- |ors. Accordingly he purchased a news- paper containing photographic repro- ductions of the American fleet as sta- tioned off Santia, CORES of jack tars in the North Atlantic squadron wear Admiral George Dewey on their left arms above the elbow. ‘It is a por- trait tattooed in green and red and if the tar happened to be flush when the pricking was done it is sur- rounded by a wreath with the stars and | stripes entwine Measured by tattoo- ing, Dewey is by far the most popular | engineering officer holding the rank of man in the navy, with “Fighting Bob” | Jieutenant, and temporarily stationed Evans a clos cond. There are also a | on the Brooklyn, had drawn detailed ms, a Philip, a Schley and | sketches for the use of the Government, of “Liberty” and “The | showing the various positions assumed 3 m0n | by our ships and by the enemy from | the time the Cervera surrendered. | managed to secure a set of these offi- | cial drawings, which he showed me; { and then he outlined the design as it would look when tattooed on the sail- or's body. “The seaman came around on_time, | after the fight. d, since the war began the navy my of the United States has been expressing its enthusiasm in the red and blue skin pictures of the tattooer to a degree hitherto unknown. Some of the designs used are most extensive and re- | In some way he Ind and ma ble. {and I set to work with electric needles Or caman who came to Samuel | and inks” Mr., O'Reilly adds, “and I O'Reilly, the artist of Chatham square, | Worked in the hills at the entrance of 3 : 5 | the harbor, wi % : wanted a picture of the battle of San- ‘l'_’r‘]‘ “}!’]‘;r;&’:"“g t}?@‘; béz’ri_“er‘;g“s'l“l‘;g tiago pricked into his chest. ~MTI. | ooming out and running down the coast O'Reilly is a Yankee in spite of his | with our fleet chasing them and firing. name, and he has invented a wonderful | It was a long time before this difficult ILLUSTRATING THE TERRORS OF WAR ON A SAILORS BACK 5 ( artist ai; » harbor, and pictures | 1 of the Spanish ships as they appeared | He ascertained that an | battle began until after | Professor Langley’s disposal, will now proceed to carry out on a larger scale the remarkable experi- ments which he conducted privately. for many years, resulting in the discovery of certain principles of flight and in an “aerodrome’’—a steam-driven flying machine of stéel and canvas—which re- peatedly flew a distance of three-quar- ters of a mile and was the first flying machine capable of actual and inde- pendent flight which man had created. This initlal success gave him world- wide fame and pointed to ‘the way which''othér inventors must follow to reach success. This was two years ago. He said then that he had demon- strated the principles and possibilities of mechanical flight and would aban- don the problem to others. He had given much of his time for years and thousands of dollars to the work, and and he many thousands were needed to go further. But now Congress said, “Here's a small stake of 000, Mr. Langley; now go ahead.” So Professor Langley will proceed to go ahead, and it looks as though American genius will teach mankind to soar with the eagle and pass the swallow in its flight. The term “flying machine” has come to be applied to a contrivance for flight in which buoyancy is wholly ignored. It is to, be sustained in the air wholly by horizontal planes and given motion by propellers or possibly flapping wings. The balloon principle has been wholly abandoned by experimenters with scientific knowledge who recognize the fact that the great bulk of a buoy- ant car in any form is an impediment to speed and mobility, and is at the mercy of the winds. The soaring machines of Otto Lilien- thal and others, the gliding machines of Chanute and Herring and somewhat similar contrivance of Dr. Woelfert have helped show the possibilities in this way as well as the dangers of try- ing to fly, for Lilienthal and Woelfert have both been killed during experi- ments within two years. But Langley has taught the world/ more ahout flying than &ll the rest and his accounts of his long experiments are interesting reading and inspire re- gpect for him and for his efforts. When Langley took up the problem he didn’t go to building a big artificial bird that he could ride on. He began inquiring how a bird flies and no man could tell him a little bit about themystery of “the way of a bird in the air.” - He says that he could get no help from books when he asked himself years ago if the problem of human flight was hope- less and absurd. Sir Isaac Newton had figured out the resistance to advance through the air and other mathema- ticians have worked outformulae show- ing how enormously power must in- crease with the velocity of flight. He applied these formulae to a swallow and found that according to the great mathematicians a swallow must be as powerful as a man. Then he watched start his experiments for the & Z8 hawks soaring in graceful circles and advancing through the .air without using any power at all. Rules applyius to hors ships and so on evidently did not apply up in the air. 0 he began a search for first prin- ciples. Twelve years ago he set up at Allegheny, Pa., a big whirling table, run by a steam engine and carrying an arm 100 feet long which could be speed- ed around at seventy miles an hour. All sorts of apparatuses and planes were attached to the end of this arm, drag- ged through the air at varying speeds, and the power, resistance and behavior were tested in all sorts of ways for three years. For instance he attached a sheet of brass weighing one pound to the arm by a spring scale. When suspended still the scale of course showed a pound of pull by the plate. ‘When the arm was whirled and the plate dragged through the air he found that the scale registered less pull. At the highest speed the pull was less than one ounce. In other words he discov- ered that in rapid motion -it took but a fraction as much power to not only sustain the plate in the air, but to keep it in motion, and the further new and strange fact that the faster the motion the less the power required. He thus worked out new and valuable scientific truths and felt his way toward aerial flight. AIll this, of course, related to “horizontal” movements of planes. Years of experiment convinced him that horizontal mechanical flight was PROFESSOR S. C. LANGLEY of the Smith- sonian Institute. From a photograph. theoretically possible with engines that could then be built. That was one step. There were other almost insuperable difficulties regarding upward and down- ward motion and the acquisition of the “art’ of aerial navigation. But it was plain that the first necessity was high speed—the higher the easier. This is one thing that Langley taught, and it seems to promise that when flying ma- chines fly the petrel will be a laggard and “lightning express” trains will be creeping things. ‘When he finally got to the building of his first flyer the problem of ‘an engine of unprecedented lightness in proportion to power was long worried over. He wanted one that would welgh less than ten pounds to the horse power and a few years ago the average engine weighed 1000 pounds to the horse power. Compressed air, electricity and gas engines were tried and finally abandoned for a steam engine in which every economy was sacrificed wholly to lightness. Engines were made by doz- ens for little aerodromes that worked wrong and got smashed. These first flying machines were something like the last one—the one pictured. They were driven by propellers set amidshins and with rudders, but they wouldn’t balance in the air and the problem of how to make them balance was one of mahy worked out with - failure after failure. Much more was needed than the mere power to fly. The problems that arose and the hundreds of exveri- ments and failures that attended vears of faithful effort would 1.ake a long story even in briefest outline. But fin- ally in 1896 came the success that war- rants the action of Congress. The flying machine that would really fly suggested a big dragon fly. There were two sets of rigid wings, thirteen feet from tip to tip, made of canvas and steel rods and attached to a long steel rod which was the backbone. to which were attached two propellers connected with the engine suspended from the rod. The furnace was in front, the coils of the boiler wound toward thie rear and the smoke stack stuck out behind toward the rudder. The entire weight of the aerodrome was thirty pounds and the odd boiler and engine weighed five pounds. and would supply one and one-half horse power for five minutes, driving the propellers at 1200 revolutions a minute. The cylinder in front was designed merely to keep the machine afloat when it landed in the water. When this queer but comparatively simple flying machine was ready there were months of trouble in solving the problem of launching it in the air over the Potomac River, chosden so that the machine might land uninjured in water. Finally a successful apparatus on. a barge was devised. - In 1896 this aerodrome repeatedly flew from half to three-quarters of a mile at a speed of thirty miles an hour, descending in safety to be recovered. “A miracle!” said wondering witnesses. A flying machine had at last flown, and it was the scientific evolution of years. A thousand problems had been solved, and the practicability of mechanical * flight demonstrated, Langley paused in triumph and said to the world, “There are the principles; go ahead.” Now the nation tells him to go ahead himself. There is a long way to go before mails, men and dynamite will flit about the upper air, but Langley's success warrants the faith that our wings have almost got here. It is not unlikely that we will fly into the twentieth century as a past generation steamed into the nineteenth. ’ O000000000 OOO000O0OOO0000OOOOOOO0O0OOOOOOO0OOOO00OOO0000000000000000000000000OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAR TATTOOED ON THE ARMS OF ENTHUSIASTIC SOLDIERS AND SAILORS. design was finished; that is, it was long for electric tattooing. When it was fin- ished that sailor had ‘the whole battle of Santiago stretching like a panorama across the front of his body.” One of those who came to have patri- otic designs placed upon him now bears, in addition to the regulation picture of Admiral Dewey on his left arm, a por- trait of General Fitzhugh Lee on his right arm, and on his chest the Ameri- can and Cuban flags intertwined. The greater number of customers brought to the tattoo shop by the war have been either sailors or naval reserves station- ed on vessels that had seen active serv- ice, and the reserves especially have been partial to two designs, which are shown herewith in illustrations, “Lib- erty,” and “The Man Behind the Gun.” These two have been and are by all means the most popular, but a third favorite is an American eagle with flag and shield, executed in four colors. A good many volunteer soldiers, espe- cially from the various troops of Rough Riders, have had permanent souvenirs of the war with Spain tattooed upon them, and of course these are almost without exception of patriotic nature. One of the most elaborate examples of tattooing caused directly by the war is a huge dragon done in red, green, yellow, blue and black upon the back of a man who was stationed on an auxil- il ‘ , jary cruiser. The accompanying illus- | tration showing Mr. O'Reilly at work | upon this man is reproduced from a | flashlight photograph. The customer thought he might be killed before the | war ended and was very anxious to | have upon him some mark of proper | identification. He got it; and he sur- | vived the war. By examining the picture carefully it may be seen that the tattooer is hold- ing upon the subject’s shoulder a curi- | ous instrument connected with a wire that ends in an e.ectric motor upon a table near by, and the instrument on the shoulder is an electric tattocer. Un- til half a decade ago Mr. O'Reilly used for tattooing the ordinary instrument | which had been common property in Burmah, Japan, the Sandwich Islands and Chinese Tartary for a thousand years—in fact, wherever tattooing has been practiced. This instrument differed somewhat in form in various lands, but substantially it was of a single type, consisting of four very fine needles placed close to one another in a row and bound together very tightly. The blunt ends were then firmly fixed in a handle, leaving the pointed ends ex- posed for about a quarter of an inch. The operator would dip- this set of needles in ink and then prick the skin of his customer, and four little holes would result. Then it would be dipped | A\ //’” ///,\I// ™ \\ e, AVORITES OF THE SAILORS NDO SOLDIERS : DEWEY AND, LEE ... in ink again and four more holes would { be pricked. This process was repeated | is absolutely necessary in using the | over and over until the design was fin- ished; and a slow, tedious and irritat- ing process it wi Nobody can tell how long it took to cover the body of the Greek Captain Constentenus, the first “tattooed man” who traveled with P. Barnum, but in all probability a year or two passed away before the work was finished. When the conveni- ent little electric motors came into gen- | eral use Mr. O'Reilly began to think of some way whereby the slow hand- needle might be improved upon, and finally he invented and patented his tattooer, which performs work with rapidity almost incredibic. The operat- ing end of this machinc consists of a single fine needle which is made to dart in and out of its case at a rate of speed approaching a thousand strokes a minute. The illustration showing the sailor from the auxiliary cruiser will indicate clearly how the work is done. The cus- tomer stripped to his waist and Mr. O'Reilly quickly traced in outline a fig- ure of a large dragon, which was trans- ferred to the bared back by means of a black carbonized substance. Then the sailor sat down in a chair, facing its | placed on them a crucifix, or a figure | back, to which he held tightly, so as to steady himself. This was necessary for two reasons. The human skin moves easily and is very elastic, and it high-speed needle to avoid making sev- eral punctures at any particular spot lest the flesh be torn. the customer must hold still and the operator must keep his needle moving | constantly over the surface. Years ago sailors were about the only Americans who thought of being tat- | tooed, and they only because they saw people in far-off lands who had been | so treated. But nowadays a great | many men in different walks of life | bear designs larger or smaller upon | them; and even women not infrequent- |1y have a single flower or initial pricked |into the skin. One curious development | of recent years, Mr. O'Rellly says, is that it is not at all uncommon for a | man to bring in a design of a crest or coat of arms to be tattooed in special colors upon them. Other persons are tattooed upon the death of a relative, or the birth of a child, or to commem- orate some other misfortune or fortune. Again, many a man or woman will be tattooed upon entering a religious life, or upon reforming from a career of | drunkenness, crime or vice. Nearly al- | ways such persons | of the. Virgin, or a head of Christ. Yet others will have sacred emblems tat- tooed upon them when there is no need DESTROCTION OF CERVERA'S FLEET DEPICTED ON THE BREAST, | In other words | desire to have | Why he wanted her for any special reformation, merely as a part of their growth in religious life. Of all classes and conditions of men who are oftenest tattooed, however, the British sailor stands first. Do you ask why? Ican't tell you, and I don’t know any one who can. If it is necessary, tattooed designs can be removed and new flesh and cuticle will form so that no scars need be left, it is said. We were speaking of this, Mr. O'Reilly’s assistant and I, and he carelessly pulled an envelope out of the desk and slid upon the table designs of an anchor and a star and one of Venus, which last was fully five inches long. They were blackened and looked as if they had been made of charred pulp which had been dried un- til stiff and hard. “The anchor and star once decorated the hands of a man who is now a New York policeman,” explained Mr. Get- chell, the assistant. *“He had passed all the examinations, but couldn’t get on the force so long as he was tat- tooed, so he came in here and we re- moved the marks. That Venus is from the arm of another man. I don’t know removed; but he did. Originally she was more than five inches long, but the skin has shrunk since it was taken off.” HENRY EDWARD ROOD.