Transfusion

In 1845, the first year of its life, the Scientific American examined a new contraption, a balloon with a two-horsepower engine, and declared boldly that "the practicability of traveling rapidly and safely through the air has been . . . established."

As a popular journal of science, the new magazine was soon tops in its field. Its reputation was so well established in Thomas Edison's day that he gave its editor the first demonstration of his talking machine. But in recent years, Scientific American had been outdistanced by livelier rivals. Last week, with its circulation down to 40,000 (from a 93,660 peak), it came to the end of an era.

Two former LIFE science editors, Gerard Piel, 32, and Dennis Flanagan, 28, bought the magazine from Patent Lawyer Orson Munn, whose family had owned it for 101 years. For an undisclosed sum, they got the magazine's typewriters, circulation, Manhattan office space and paper. Editor Piel and Managing Editor Flanagan hope to hold the old readers, and get new ones, by effecting a change that "will be as great as the change from the old Life to the new LIFE."

They will need 100,000 readers to make money--but money is one of the least of their problems. Among their well-heeled backers: Gerard Swope, John Hay Whitney, Lessing Rosenwald.

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