narrative, which reproduces the original document in its
necessarily somewhat fragmentary form, to lay before the reader the whole
of the facts up to date, prefacing my statement by saying that, if there
be any who doubt the narrative of Joyce-Armstrong, there can be no
question at all as to the facts concerning Lieutenant Myrtle, R.N., and
Mr. Hay Connor, who undoubtedly met their end in the manner described.

The Joyce-Armstrong Fragment was found in the field which is called Lower
Haycock, lying one mile to the westward of the village of Withyham, upon
the Kent and Sussex border. It was on the fifteenth of September last
that an agricultural labourer, James Flynn, in the employment of Mathew
Dodd, farmer, of the Chauntry Farm, Withyham, perceived a briar pipe
lying near the footpath which skirts the hedge in Lower Haycock. A few
paces farther on he picked up a pair of broken binocular glasses.
Finally, among some nettles in the ditch, he caught sight of a flat,
canvas-backed book, which proved to be a note-book with detachable
leaves, some of which had come loose and were fluttering along the base
of the hedge. These he collected, but some, including the first, were
never recovered, and leave a deplorable hiatus in this all-important
statement. The notebook was taken by the labourer to his master, who in
turn showed it to Dr. J. H. Atherton, of Hartfield. This gentleman at
once recognised the need for an expert examination, and the manuscript
was forwarded to the Aero Club in London, where it now lies.

The first two pages of the manuscript are missing. There is also one
torn away at the end of the narrative, though none of these affect the
general coherence of the story. It is conjectured that the missing
opening is concerned with the record of Mr. Joyce-Armstrong's
qualifications as an aeronaut, which can be gathered from other sources
and are admitted to be unsurpassed among the air-pilots of England. For
many years he has been looked upon as among the most daring and the most
intellectual of flying men, a combination which has enabled him to both
invent and test several new devices, including the common gyroscopic
attachment which is known by his name. The main body of the manuscript
is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are in pencil and are so
ragged as to be hardly legible--exactly, in fact, as they might be
expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly from the seat of
a moving a