Inventors who work in secret, and whose vital creations never see the light of day until the world has passed them by, are mostly figures of romantic fiction. Most inventors take good care that their devices are brought to public notice, preferably after patents have been granted to them; and one of their main concerns in the 19th century was therefore the channels of communication open to them.

Sir George Cayley wrote, in 1837, that “the experiments that have been made, and the investigation which it (the subject) has undergone, lie almost unconnected in the periodical publications of the last thirty years; and hence, every new speculator on the possibility of steering balloons takes up the subject merely on his own view”.