He suggested the use of experimental tanks for testing the powers of ship models, invented an ear-trumpet for the deaf, improved the common house-stove of his native land, cured smoky chimneys, took a lively interest in machine-guns and even sketched a flying machine.
The construction of a flying machine was next attempted.
Flying animals differ entirely from sailing ships and from balloons, with which they are not unfrequently though erroneously compared; and a flying machine constructed upon proper principles can have nothing in common with either of those creations.
The ship floats upon water and the balloon upon air; but the ship differs from the balloon, and the ship and the balloon differ from the flying creature and flying machine.
The analogies which connect the water with the air, the ship with the balloon, and the ship and the balloon with the flying creature and flying machine are false analogies.
