Despite the protests of the majority of interested persons, however, Cocking and a companion named Green made the ascent at the appointed time. After rising to a certain height the parachute was cast off, the parachute's car containing the inventor, while Green remained in the balloon. Instead of sailing slowly toward the earth, however, the parachute fell rapidly, with an oscillating movement, gaining speed and jerking violently as it descended, until finally when several hundred feet in the air, Cocking was thrown from the car and dashed to pieces, while the wreck of the parachute landed a few yards away. Thus the predictions of the majority came true, although as we know now, the cause of the tragedy was due to faulty material rather than the design of the machine. For the American aeronaut, Wise, demonstrated a little later that parachutes built on the same principle as that of Cocking could be used successfully. As we have seen, most of the flying-machines attempted heretofore took for their model the bird with flapping wings. There were certain persons, however, who had observed that this flapping movement was not essential to flight--that certain large-winged birds, such as buzzards and hawks, were able to soar in any direction at will, holding their wings rigidly. It was evident, therefore, that shape, position, and construction of the bird's wing played quite as important a part as the flapping movement. The lifting power of plane surfaces, or aeroplanes, was also carefully studied in this connection and in 1842 the inventor, Henson, constructed a flying-machine utilizing this aeroplane principle, his machine having thin, fixed surfaces, slightly inclined to the line of motion, and supported by the upward pressure of the air due to the forward movement. Everyone will remember the distance to which a skilful juggler can project an ordinary playing-card by giving it a certain inclination in throwing. It will travel upward or on a level, and continue this direction until the force of the movement of throwing is exhausted. Obviously, if this force were self-contained in the card--if it could continue rotating and moving forward--it could fly indefinitely. Henson had studied and experimented with these miniature aeroplanes, and was convinced that if the same principle that governed their flight were to be applied to larger machines, practical flying-machines could be made.