Such a versatile Mr. Poli...
Drawing of the airship "Dolphin" by Jean Samuel Poli and Durs Egg, ca. 1817 (after an engraving ca. 1835)
Is it by your wisdom that the hawk flies and directs its wings toward the south?
Job 39:26
Job 39:26
stories about weapons. This man's name appears differently in different sources. Some say he's Jean Samuel Pauly, others Samuel Johannes Pauli. Only the dates of birth and death are consistent: 1766, circa 1821. In any case, or rather, in both cases we're talking about the same person: a Swiss inventor and gunsmith of the early 19th century.
According to parish records, he was baptized in Wechigen near Bern, Switzerland, on April 13, 1766, and his parents were listed as Johann Pauli and Veronica Christina (née Pulfer). His father owned a carriage repair shop, and when young Pauli reached adulthood, he began working as a blacksmith. And… it's clear he was born with an inquisitive mind, because he was always improving something, striving to make travel more comfortable for passengers.
As an adult, he traveled to Bern and attempted to sell his inventions to wealthy local aristocrats. In 1796, he was already advertising his own carriages and technical innovations. Everything changed in March 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte decided to gain free access to the Alpine passes and plunder the legendary Bernese treasury to finance his Egyptian campaign. Pauli was in the Swiss army at the time. artillery sergeant, and he was immediately struck by how light and mobile the French guns were, in contrast to the heavy Bernese guns, which required a team of oxen to transport.
So he began developing artillery for the new Helvetic Republic, one that would require only one horse or several strong men to transport a single cannon. In 1799, he wrote a manual on the use of firearms, and even then he attracted attention.
In the new Helvetic Republic, many bridges were destroyed during the French invasion, and in 1801, he proposed to the government a design for an elegant, high-capacity arched bridge. The design was reviewed and approved, and Pauli even received two hundred francs from the Helvetic Republic's treasury as a reward. However, the cash flow dried up; new carriages were selling poorly, so he was forced to find other ways to earn a living.
It happens, and often does, that in addition to their main job, which is primarily for money, a person also dreams of something... "like that." Pauli, for example, dreamed for many years of building a flying machine controlled by human muscle power. And so, in the spring of 1802, he drew up plans for an airship shaped like a fish, with a black body, a vertical red tail, and two "fins" on the left and right sides, which were supposed to be used for steering. It also featured round eyes in gold frames and a golden mouth, giving Pauli's device a truly magical appearance.
Interestingly, Bernese officials were quite enthusiastic about this project, but they lacked the funds to implement it. Then Pauli learned that General Michel Ney had donated a whopping fifty thousand francs from the treasury to a similar project in France, and… he immediately packed his bags and left for Paris in 1802, never to return.
In Paris, he went straight to Ney, showed him everything, and Ney took an interest in his plans: he gave him a beautiful apartment in Paris and commissioned Aimé Boll, the city's most renowned balloon designer, to build an airship based on the designs of Jean Pauly, as he was now known in France. The craft was built, and on August 22, 1804, it successfully took to the air in the park at the Château de Sceaux. On November 4, 1805, the "Flying Fish" took off again at half past three in the afternoon, and Pauly recounted the flight in the Journal de Paris. He claimed to have flown over the Champs-Élysées and the Place de la Concorde, and while above the square, he "held the aerostat in place for five or six minutes, despite the wind, to the deafening applause of the spectators." In other words, it was the first controlled lighter-than-air craft. Essentially, the first "zeppelin." However, despite the successful flight (on the whole!), Poli’s design had no continuation.
A breech-loading shotgun with homemade cartridges, based on the French patent of Pauly in 1812.
But then, while in Paris, Pauly recalled his long-held interest in firearms and, under the name "Colonel Jean Samuel Pauly," opened a gunsmith's workshop, where he also invented another bridge and an explosive mixture based on mercury and platinum. In 1808, together with the French gunsmith François Prélat, he also manufactured the world's first all-metal cartridges. These were copper cylinders with a built-in potassium chlorate primer (Pauly's main invention), into which gunpowder was poured, followed by a wad and a bullet filled with "gun grease." The cartridges did not provide obturation. In this respect, his cartridge differed from the Potte cartridge of 1855. Pauly's cartridge was loaded into the chamber through the breech, and the primer was ignited with a long needle.
In 1809, Poli hired the German Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse to refine his design, after which, upon returning to Germany, he became known as the inventor of the Dreyse needle rifle. Then, on September 29, 1812, Poli received a patent for an improved version of his cartridge, which was further refined in 1836 by the French gunsmith Casimir Lefaucheux. And here's what none other than Napoleon himself said about all this: "Inventions ahead of their time remain unused until knowledge reaches the same level." Moreover, Poli and Dreyse "dispersed" in different directions after April 5, 1814, when coalition forces entered Paris: von Dreyse headed back to Prussia, while Poli headed to London, taking with him the plans for his airship.
Arriving in Foggy Albion, Pauley settled on Charlotte Street in the heart of London, using the Anglicized name Samuel John Pauley. There, he continued to refine his "flying fish" with the support of Durs Egg (a prominent Swiss businessman personally acquainted with King George III and the Prince of Wales). And here again, he met with some success: on April 25, 1815, he was granted a royal license to build "an aerostatic machine in the form of a fish or bird" with the goal of getting it into the air within six months.
The work was carried out near Hyde Park, where a special large building (30 meters long) was constructed with gates that opened from the floor to the roof. This was probably the first of its kind in the world. aviation The hangar. The airship's fish-shaped outer hull had to be sewn from the dried intestines of 70,000 bulls, and in seven layers.
A second spherical balloon was intended to provide "pressure equalization" within the "fish." The 10-meter tail stabilizer served as a rudder and was made of silk and whalebone, as were the left and right rudders. As for the drive, Pauly realized during his flights in Paris that muscle power alone was insufficient. Therefore, his plans included creating the lightest possible steam engine.
On August 16, 1816, the London Observer reported that the "Flying Dolphin" was almost ready and would soon begin regular flights to Paris, carrying fifteen to twenty passengers. This flying machine was the talk of the town, attracting crowds of onlookers who paid a guinea just to peer into the hangar and witness its maiden flight. When Madame Tussauds' wax museum toured Manchester, a scale model of the "Flying Dolphin" hung above its entrance. Egg and Pauley announced that during their first flights, in calm weather, they would fly the fish-shaped balloon "in a circle around London," and in strong winds, they would change course but always return to their starting point.
Unfortunately, the first flight never took place, although the reasons for the difficulties the aeronauts encountered remain unknown. Ultimately, a conflict arose between the two Swiss aeronautical pioneers, and their collaboration ended.
While working with Egg, Pauley didn't neglect his firearms developments, and while in England, he obtained two more patents for improvements to his gun. The first patent, issued on August 4, 1814, covered a new design that used compressed air to quickly propel the needle toward the percussion cap. The patent also described a cannon with a similar ignition system. The second patent, issued on May 14, 1816, was an improved version of the first patent, covering a pistol and additional variants of the gun. However, his work never progressed beyond obtaining these papers. Pauley eventually fell into poverty and died in London around 1821. All of his achievements and innovations were forgotten for many, many years. It is known that Samuel John Pauley married Louisa Eliza Eleanor Atkins, and their wedding took place at St. Mary's Church, Lambeth, on July 4, 1816, and their daughter Mary Louisa Veronica Pauley was baptized there on December 7, 1817...
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