Quotes:Langley, Samuel Pierpont

Zirkoff, Boris

Langley, Samuel Pierpont. American physicist and astronomer, b. at Roxbury, Mass., Aug. 22, 1834; d. Feb. 27, 1906. Educated in the Boston Latin School and in Europe. After a few years of professorship at Harvard and U.S. Naval Academy, became director of the Allegheny Observatory and prof, of physics and astronomy at the Western Univ, of Pennsylvania. Elected, 1887, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. His name is especially associated with aeronautics and the exploration of the infrared portions of the solar spectrum, for which he invented the bolometer. On May 6, 1896, he successfully launched his steam-driven “aerodrome,” which flew half a mile above the Potomac River. Further experiments on his part met with ridicule from the press and the failure of the Government to support his research. He nevertheless paved the way for all future experiments, and years later a test of his man-carrying machine made at the Curtiss shops demonstrated its inherent stability. Langley’s published works include nearly 200 titles.

The quotation in the present volume is from his art. on “The Sun’s Radiant Energy,” in the Scientific American, Vol. 41, July 26, 1879, p. 53.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, p. 655