It was at this time that men, in their effort to carry themselves from
place to place, seem to have taken the first hints from nature. It was
remembered that _between_ swimming and flying, and _between_ flying
and walking, certain forms of locomotion, quite rapid withal, are used
by our poor relatives on land and sea. Thus the flying-fish rises from
the water and shoots, quite parabolically, for some distance through
the air. The genus Cheiroptera also gives a hint of progress by means
of wings that are not made of feathers. The flying lemur, nearly akin
to _Homo bifurcans_, shows how one may rise and go by a sort of aërial
progress along the ground.
Out of these hints the men of Am-ri-ka, at the epoch of which we
speak, sought inventions by means of which they might keep close to
the ground for safety, but otherwise fly; for the age was very fast!
Under these conditions some Unknown Man invented what was called the
By-sigh-kel. It was a sort of flat-sided, rotary ground-skimmer, very
thin and notorious. It came coincidently with another invention called
the Trol-lee. The latter was an electrical wagon for general travel in
cities and suburbs, while the By-sigh-kel was a personal carriage for
one or possibly two. The passenger in this case had to start his
machine and then jump on. The propulsion was effected by a pump-like
action of the legs, very tiresome and elegant. The passenger generally
leaned forward in a position strongly suggestive of the favorite
attitude of his arboreal ancestors. It was the peculiarity of the
Trol-lee that it made a sort of humming roar as it went that sounded
like a hundred prisoners groaning in unison; but the By-sigh-kel made
no noise in going except in collisions and wrecks. The latter were so
frequent that a whole cycle of restorative arts had to be undertaken
of which the principal was dentistry. At the close of the century
there were few front teeth remaining--except artificials.
Many accounts of the Age of the By-sigh-kel and Trol-lee have been
preserved among the old records of Am-ri-ka, and traditions of it are
found in the antiquarian papers of other countries. We have seen
pictorial representations made by Fo-to-graf-ure of scenes from the
age referred to. The streets of extinct cities are found pictured in
this way. There was an instrument called the Cow-dack which was used
in taking pictures in an instantaneous manner, so that the scene would
look like life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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