the present, of which the importance cannot be overestimated, and has
been of the greatest value in the development of aeronautics, both in
theory and experiment. The objects of the Society are to give a stronger
impulse to the scientific study of aerial navigation, to promote the
intercourse of those interested in the subject at home and abroad, and
to give advice and instruction to those who study the principles upon
which aeronautical science is based. From the date of its foundation the
Society has given special study to dynamic flight, putting this before
ballooning. Its library, its bureau of advice and information, and its
meetings, all assist in forwarding the study of aeronautics, and its
twenty-three early Annual Reports are of considerable value, containing
as they do a large amount of useful information on aeronautical
subjects, and forming practically the basis of aeronautical science.

Ante to Wenham, Stringfellow and the French experimenters already noted,
by some years, was Le Bris, a French sea captain, who appears to have
required only a thorough scientific training to have rendered him of
equal moment in the history of gliding flight with Lilienthal himself.
Le Bris, it appears, watched the albatross and deduced, from the manner
in which it supported itself in the air, that plane surfaces could
be constructed and arranged to support a man in like manner. Octave
Chanute, himself a leading exponent of gliding, gives the best
description of Le Bris's experiments in a work, Progress in Flying
Machines, which, although published as recently as I 1894, is already
rare. Chanute draws from a still rarer book, namely, De la Landelle's
work published in 1884. Le Bris himself, quoted by De la Landelle as
speaking of his first visioning of human flight, describes how he killed
an albatross, and then--'I took the wing of the albatross and exposed
it to the breeze; and lo! in spite of me it drew forward into the wind;
notwithstanding my resistance it tended to rise. Thus I had discovered
the secret of the bird! I comprehended the whole mystery of flight.'

This apparently took place while at sea; later on Le Bris, returning to
France, designed and constructed an artificial albatross of sufficient
size to bear his own weight. The fact that he followed the bird outline
as closely as he did attests his lack of scientific training for his
task, while at the same time the success of the experiment was proof of
his geni