2-995-533 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sabots elastiques, an apparatus for walking on water, 1860. Engraving from 'the Manuscript department of the British Museum...accompanied by a brief specification, without date, but probably written towards the end of the last century, explaining the object of the inventor and the nature of the contrivance by which he trusted to effect it. This man, one Senor Perez, a Spaniard, appears to have been a cool-headed, sensible person, fully alive to all the difficulties of his undertaking, and not at all disposed to overestimate its utility and importance. "My first obstacle was to discover some method to prevent an upset, and after divers experiments I found that some kind of ballast or counterpoise was indispensable...I caused two boxes to be made large enough to displace a volume of water equal to the weight of my body...I had three triangles made, each furnished with a pivot at both ends, supported by a species of bridle, arranged in such fashion as to allow the boxes to advance in parallel, one with the other...These means have succeeded very well when the river was not too rapid; and I have traversed the Seine several times without much opposition".' From "Illustrated London News", 1860.