By Land, Sea, and Air

continued

Also on display is Italian military engineer and inventor Agostino Ramelli's lavish 1588 engraving of an imaginary mobile bridge, consisting of short wagonlike sections, from his displayed book Le Diverse et Artificiose Machine. We're told this book also contains Ramelli's famous "wheel-like machine that allows for the reading of multiple books without leaving one's seat." And there's a dainty proposed 1836 "aerial railroad" (pictured) with cars "Arrow" and "Dart" suspended on threadlike cables above the Thames, a velocipede whose entire frame is ingeniously shaped from one giant curvy leaf spring, and the facsimile of a Cyrillic-printed logbook from the first Moscow-North Pole-United States flight, in 1937, completed by "Airplane No. 25." The works are on display through Thursday, May 31.

[Review published May 2007]