Perhaps the first historical record in the line of mechanical flight worthy of attention exists in the remarkable sketches and plans for a flying mechanism left by Leonardo da Vinci at his death in 1519. He had followed the model of the flying bird as closely as possible, although when the wings were outspread they had an outline more like those of the bat. While extremely ingenious in the arrangement of the levers, the power necessary to move them fast enough to lift the weight of a man was far beyond the muscular strength of any human being. It was a century later, in 1617, that Veranzio, a Venetian, proved his faith in his inventive ability by leaping from a tower in Venice with a crude, parachute-like contrivance. He alighted without injury. In 1684, an Englishman, John Wilkins, then bishop of Chester, built a machine for flying in which he installed a steam-engine. No record exists of its performance. In 1678, a French locksmith by the name of Besnier devised what seems now a very crude apparatus for making descending flights, or glides, from elevated points. It was, however, at that date considered important enough to be described in the _Journal of the Savants_. It was a wholly unscientific combination of the “dog-paddle” motion in swimming, with wing areas which collapsed on the upward motion and spread out on the downward thrust. If it was ever put to a test it must have failed completely. In 1742, the Marquis de Bacqueville constructed an apparatus which some consider to have been based on Besnier’s idea--which seems rather doubtful. He fastened the surfaces of his aeroplane directly to his arms and legs, and succeeded in making a long glide from the window of his mansion across the garden of the Tuileries, alighting upon a washerwoman’s bench in the Seine without injury. Paucton, the mathematician, is credited with the suggestion of a flying machine with two screw propellers, which he called “pterophores”--a horizontal one to raise the machine into the air, and an upright one to propel it. These were to be driven by hand. With such hopelessly inadequate power it is not surprising that nothing came of it, yet the plan was a foreshadowing of the machine which has in these days achieved success. The Abbé Desforges gained a place in the annals of aeronautics by inventing a flying machine of which only the name “Orthoptere” remains. [Illustration: Meerwein’s Flying Machine. _A_, shows the position of the man in the wings, their comparative size, and the operating levers; _B_, position when in flight.]