From the summit of the tower of the hippodrome at Constantinople,
a certain Saracen met the same fate as Simon, in the reign of the
Emperor Comnenus. His experiments were conducted on the
principle of the inclined plane. He descended in an oblique
course, using the resistance of the air as a support. His robe,
very long and very large, and of which the flaps were extended on
an osier frame, preserved him from suddenly falling.

The inclined plane probably suggested to Milton the flight of the
angel Uriel, in "Paradise Lost," who descended in the morning
from heaven to earth upon a ray of the sun, and ascended in the
evening from earth to heaven by the same means. But we cannot
quote here the fancies of pure imagination, and we will not speak
of Medeus the magician, of the enchantress Armida, of the witches
of the Brocken, of the hippogriff of Zephyrus with the rosy
wings, or of the diabolical inventions of the middle ages, for
many of which the stake was the only reward.

Roger Bacon, in the thirteenth century, inaugurated a more
scientific era. In his "Treaty of the Admirable Power of Art and
Nature," he puts forth the idea that it is possible "to make
flying-machines in which the man, being seated or suspended in
the middle, might turn some winch or crank, which would put in
motion a suit of wings made to strike the air like those of a
bird." In the same treatise he sketches a flying-machine, to
which that of Blanchard, who lived in the eighteenth century,
bears a certain resemblance. The monk, Roger Bacon, was worthy
of entering the temple of fame before his great namesake the Lord
Chancellor, who in the seventeenth century inaugurated the era of