By John Aloysius Farrell
Ran across this, in the Chicago Times of Feb. 8, 1894, while working on my biography of Clarence Darrow.
“Tells About A Flying Machine”
“Dr. Pynchon’s Aerial Vessel to be Propelled by Dynamite Explosions.”
“Dr. Edwin Pynchon last night told the Western Society of Engineers about the airship which he proposes to build, which will be propelled by the explosion of dynamite cartridges and upheld by the system of aerial planes. He said his vessel would be similar to that now being built by Maxim, with the exception of the method of propulsion. The doctor’s principle is the discharge through tubes, extending to the rear of the airship, of dynamite cartridges. These cartridges are to be discharged under a plate, and the elasticity of the air will act in pushing forward the ship. The principle is the same as that of the explosion of dynamite on fixed bodies. The doctor asserted that it would cost $1.20 a minute to move his airship, and at the rate of 200 miles an hour it would make the expense of a passage over the ocean about $1000, and the vessel would carry twenty-five passenters, thus providing cheaper transportation than that of steamers.”
Pynchon. Airship. Dynamite.
Merely an ancestor?
Or maybe our Thomas? A temporal Trespasser?
“Soon the crew began to find evidence of Trespass everywhere, some invisible narrative occupying, where it did not in fact define, the passage of the day.”
– Against the Day.
