JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

This lovely design occurs on a pamphlet written by Albert Ritter v. Miller-Hauenfels (1818-1897),  Der mühelose Segelflug der Vögel und die segelnde Luftschiffahrt als Endziel hundertjährigen Strebens, or, roughly “The effortless gliding of birds and the sailing airships as the ultimate goal for the end of the century”).  The booklet was presented 18 January 1890 by the  Polytechnischen Club in Graz, and published in Wien by Spielhagen & Schurich later that year.

In his lectures at Graz Miller-Hauenfels looks at the possibility of human (non-powered, gliding) flight via forward-progression bird flight, basing his work on that of Marey, Lilienthal and Parseval. It is a sky-above-mud-below moment, as Miller-Hauenfels was a mining engineer and supervisor, spending much of his time with his mind in and under the earth. And then there, in the not-so-backish-background, was his other thinking, which place him far above the ground.