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Page 15 text:
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THE STONEHAM HIGH SCHOOL AUTHENTIC of fl }t JWoplmte” •jdrestrm axfuell Who, was the first conquerer of the air? The man’s name is unknown to most people and does not really mat- ter, but it is interesting to know that as early as 1500 a Frenchman, Jean Dante by name, constructed a glider with which he made several successful flights. There followed a few unsuc- cessful attempts to make and fly glid- ers in which one man using a glider with movable wings, fell into the Seine Elver when his wings failed to act. Then came the theory, in 1809, on which all our modern aeroplanes are built. It seems remarkable that Sir George Cayley who had never seen a heavier-tlian-air machine fly, had the initiative and boldness to state that such a thing was possible and then pro- ceeded to tell how. But as usual the discovery of the great things of life is left to those who have the necessary attributes and are not afraid to tread where others have feared to go. In 1810 an Englishman gave the first 1 proof of Cayley’s theory when he built an aeroplane using a steam engine to furnish its motive power, a remarkable thing, since at the present time we would not think of an aeroplane with- out a gasoline engine. Following this, many men interested in flying investi- gated different problems of the aero- plane. Among them was a man who probably contributed more than any other individual toward its perfection. Samuel Langley, a professor at the Smithsonian Institute, was the first real scientist to study the aeroplane, and it was he who laid the scientific foundation for the heavier-than-air machine by first working out his ideas in a laboratory and subsequently ap- plying them to models, in which he also installed steam engines of his own design. One of these models flew a distance of about 3-4 of a mile and descended without being injured. It is important for us to remember that Langley was to the aeroplane what Fulton was to the steamboat, and Stephenson was to the locomotive. Langley later made a “man-carrying- areodrome” which was twice wrecked while being launched, and abandoned until 1915, when Glen Curtiss flew it successfully without making any changes in its construction. While Langley was experimenting, Hiram Maxim, who usually is associat- ed with guns and explosives, devised a machine which had a lifting power of 3000 pounds and in which was installed a steam engine of his own design -which delivered 360 horsepower. This ma- chine cost $100,000 to build, and when it was wrecked while would-be pilots were learning to operate it, Maxim dis- covered he did not have enough money to construct another model. In reviewing all these experiments, we are impressed with the fact that no aeroplane could be successful and carry the heavy cumbersome steam engine, at that time the only motive power. It remained for the gasoline engine to supply the light-weight source of pow- er that made the aeroplane possible. In the meantime Otto Lilienthal, a wealthy German, became interested in aeronautics. The first result was his motto, so true even today, “To contrive is nothing, to construct is something, to operate is everything,” and he be- gan operating at once. He designed a method of stabilizing the machine, in which he used his legs to good advan- tage in securing lateral control. It has been said that Lilienthal’s legs were of more help to the development of flying than his brains, and even his legs were insufficient for lateral control. Lilienthal’s experiments gave the Wright brothers much to think about. They decided that in order to produce a successful aeroplane it was necessary to construct one that would maintain three long years of heart breaking la- bor, during which they were almost discouraged by several failures, they at last attained the thing for which they had striven so long. On December 17, 1905, the Wright brothers using a bi- plane glider driven by a 16 horse pow- er gasoline motor, both of their own construction, made several successful flights. The last one, which was made by Orville, being recognized as the World’s first successful, sustained flight. He travelled 852 feet in the air, at a rate of about thirty miles an hour, for 59 seconds. Although this was a crude machine, little progress towards its perfection was made until the World War brought its demands. It seemed that overnight
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Page 16 text:
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THE STONEHAM HIGH SCHOOL AUTHENTIC thousands of aircraft were built, and as many men trained to fly them. Fly- ing Corps -were added to armies and navies and the perfection of the aero- plane advanced daily. But all this phenomenal progress was along the wrong lines; that is, it tended to make the aeroplane a menace to man and his possessions. The flying machine is now undergo- ing a transformation. As the cannon were recast to make plowshares, so shall the aeroplane be changed from a weapon to a useful machine. At the present time it is used to locate forest fires, carry mails, and people on regu- lar schedules and to destroy insect pests. Who can predict how far the possibilities of the aeroplane may stretch! Suffice it to say that the fu- ture of the aeroplane offers the great- est field to young America since the invention of the railroad. P. E. M., ’23. “dilunpses of t t JVrnolb JKr bur stum” Jmuta JL olani “This is the forest primeval. The mur- muring pines and the hemloeks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.” — Longfellow Truly Hemlock Hill, in the southern part of the Arnold Arboretum, old at the time of the Pilgrims, is a remnant of that “forest primeval.” As we stand beneath its grandeur we feel the in- significance of our short lives. This ancient wood was once a part of a large farm belonging to Benjamin Bussey, a soldier of the Revolution. At his death the farm came into the pos- session of Harvard College to be used for arboricultural and agricultural purposes. Thus the oldest college re- ceived a wonderful gift in this beau- tiful farm with its trees and waving meadows. Later Mr. James Arnold, a Quaker of New Bedford, bequeathed a hundred thousand dollars to the trustees of his estate to be used for the same purpose. One of the trustees, was Mr. George B. Emerson, a lover of trees, who knew of Mr. Bussey’s fine old estate. In 1872 he arranged an agreement between Harvard and the trustees thru which the Arnold Arboretum was founded on Bussey’s farm with Mr. Arnold’s money. A few years later this museum of living things settled its roots with a sigh of content when the City of Bos- ton established the Arnold Arboretum forever. For Boston, wishing to make the Arboretum a public park, took con- trol of it by right of eminent domain. It added adjoining lands, made roads, and leased the entire property to Har- vard University for one thousand years. At the end of this time, 2882, Harvard may renew the lease. How wonderfully old some of those trees will be then! I wonder how many of the Hemlocks will still be living. In Syria there grows the Lebanon j Cedar which after many experiments has been successfully grown here in Jamaica Plain. How lovely those ce- dars will be at the end of the thousand years! I should like to see their knarled old trunks and their matted branches at that time. For the branch- es of the Lebanon Cedar are accus- tomed to grow so thickly together that when the trees are very old four or five people may sometimes stand on the top of one of them. Knowing that this tree and others as strange have been brought to the Ar- nold Arboretum, we understand the real purpose in founding a place of this kind, which has grown to be the largest in the world.. Dr. Charles Sprague Sargent, pro- fessor of aboriculture at Harvard and who may be called the father of the Arboretum, is trying to have in his great garden, all the hardy trees and shrubs which will stand the climate of New England. Explorers go every- where to bring back seeds or slips from which to grow mighty oaks or wonderful shrubs. From Japan they bring back the cherry trees with their heavily scented blossoms; from Japan, too, comes the crab apple tree blooming in all its glory just at lilac-time. Imagine an ordinary crab apple tree completely covered with delicately tinted roses, — picture a steep green hill for the back- ground and you have one of the most 10
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