I Wish to protest against the ever-recurring project of the sustentation of so-called aerial machines, by the employment of gas contained in any form of envelope, stiffened, strutted, or spherical. The mind, which enters freshly into the study of aerial navigation pure and simple, often confounded by the inability to rise from the earth, naturally suggests the aid of gas to take off the weight of the apparatus. This, however, would be a combination quite destructive of flight. The flying machine, if ever one worthy of the name be constructed, will be some apparatus of two dimensions, and will consequently be dwarfed by any auxiliary aid of cubical dimensions, such asa balloon, or any apparatus of the nature of a balloon, whatever be its shape.