seemed hopeful,
and the factory took them under its wing. Lieutenant Dunne worked at
Blair Atholl from 1907 onward, and Mr. Cody, in the winter of 1907-8,
began to construct his machine at Farnborough. In the autumn of 1908 the
Hon. C. S. Rolls offered to bring to Farnborough a biplane of the
Farman-Delagrange type, and to experiment with it on behalf of the
Government, in return for the necessary shed accommodation. The
acceptance of this proposal had been authorized when an accident to Mr.
Cody, caused by want of space, discredited the fitness of the factory
ground for aeroplane work, and the arrangement with Mr. Rolls was
deferred. He renewed his proposal in the spring of 1909, this time with
the offer of a Wright machine, and he had established himself at
Farnborough, when his death, at the Bournemouth meeting of 1910, cut
short a career of brilliant promise, for Mr. Rolls was not only one of
the best of practical aviators, but was alert in all that concerned the
science of his craft. At the factory the experiments of Mr. Cody and
Lieutenant Dunne were supported and continued, but progress was slow and
uncertain, and when, early in 1909, the two machines between them had
involved an expense of something like L2,500, further experiments with
them were abandoned for a time. Their performance did not seem to
warrant a large national outlay, and the bulk of Colonel Capper's work
was devoted to what seemed the more promising task of supplying airships
for the army. The earliest of these had been designed by Colonel
Templer, and two envelopes of gold-beater's skin were ready by 1904, but
the cost of making them had been so great that further progress on the
ship was arrested until 1907. In September of that year the first
British army airship, the _Nulli Secundus_, sausage-shaped, about a
hundred and twenty feet long and less than thirty feet in diameter, took
the air and passed successfully through its trials. It was driven by an
Antoinette engine of from forty to fifty horse-power, and attained a
speed of about sixteen miles an hour.

On the 5th of October the ship flew from Farnborough to London, circled
round St. Paul's Cathedral, manoeuvred over the grounds at Buckingham
Palace, and, on her return journey, as she could make no headway against
the wind, descended in the centre of the cycle-track at the Crystal
Palace, having been in the air for three and a half hours. Five days
later, to avoid damage by a squall, the