Blanchard prefaces the description of his machine by answering some criticisms of his project, apparently ventured by his neighbors. “They object to me,” he writes, “that flying is not the business of man, but rather of the feathered birds. I reply that feathers are not at all necessary to the bird for flight; any fabric suffices. The fly, the butterfly, the bat, etc., fly without feathers and with fanlike wings of material resembling horn. It is, then, neither the material nor the form that causes flight, but the volume and the celerity of the movement, which should be as lively as possible. “They object, moreover, that a man is too heavy to lift himself alone with wings, much less in a vessel which of itself presents enormous weight. I reply that my ship is extremely light; as to the man’s weight, I pray that attention be given to that which M. de Buffon says in his _Histoire Naturelle_, on the subject of the condor; this bird, though of enormous weight, easily lifts a two-year-old heifer weighing at least a hundred pounds, the whole with wings of about thirty to thirty-six feet expanse.” He then describes the vessel as a little ship four feet long by two feet wide, having on either side two posts, each supporting a wing ten feet long, the whole forming a parasol twenty feet in diameter. The construction was illustrated by an engraver, who had seen the vessel and was convinced of its practicability. In conclusion, the inventor writes that people shall see him cleave the air with more speed than the crow, and that without losing his breath, being protected by a pointed mask of peculiar construction. But, as he failed to make good his promises, he was subjected to ridicule, as well as praise, by the local press, one of the caricatures portraying him in the act of making an ascension before a concourse of bulging-eyed savants and long-eared jackasses, wearing spectacles to accentuate the appearance of wisdom and solemnity. The scientific coterie of Paris were apparently impatient of the attention shown Blanchard by the press and people. Accordingly, in May, 1782, the distinguished astronomer, De Laland, of the French Academy, administered a mild rebuke to the editors of the _Paris Journal_. “Gentlemen,” he wrote, “you have given so much time to air ships and divination rods that one might eventually think that you believe in these follies, or that the scientists who coöperate with your journal have nothing to say to dispel these absurd pretensions. Permit me, therefore, gentlemen, to occupy some lines in your journal to assure your readers that if the savants are silent it is only because of their contempt. [Illustration: FIG. 3.—BLANCHARD’S FLYING-MACHINE.]