enger, and only
slightly breaking one of the wings.

[Illustration: (C) U. & U.

_A German War Zeppelin._]

Had Le Bris won this success twenty years later his fame and fortune
would have been secure. But in 1854 the time was not ripe for aeronautics.
Le Bris was poor. The public responded but grudgingly to his appeals
for aid. His next experiment was less successful--perhaps for lack of
the carter--and he ultimately disappeared from aviation to become an
excellent soldier of France.

[Illustration: Photo by Press Illustrating Service.

_A French Observation Balloon Seeking Submarines._]

Perhaps had they not met with early and violent deaths, the
Lilienthals and Pilcher might have carried their experiments in the
art of gliding into the broader domain of power flight. This however
was left to the two Americans, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who have
done more to advance the art of navigating the air than all the
other experimenters whose names we have used. The story of the
Wright brothers is one of boyhood interest gradually developed into
the passion of a lifetime. It parallels to some degree the story of
Santos-Dumont who insisting as a child that "man flies" finally made
it a fact. The interest of the Wrights was first stimulated when, in
1878, their father brought home a small toy, called a "helicopter,"
which when tossed in the air rose up instead of falling. Every child
had them at that time, but curiously this one was like the seed
which fell upon fertile soil. The boys went mad, as boys will, on
the subject of flying. But unlike most boys they nurtured and
cultivated the passion and it stayed with them to manhood. From
helicopters they passed to kites, and from kites to gliders. By
calling they were makers and repairers of bicycles, but their spare
time was for years devoted to solving the problem of flight. In time
it became their sole occupation and by it they won a fortune and
world-wide fame. Their story forms a remarkable testimony to the
part of imagination, pertinacity, and courage in winning success.
After years of tests with models, and with kites controlled from the
ground, the brothers had worked out a type of glider which they
believed, in a wind of from eighteen to twenty miles an hour, would
lift and carry a man. But they had to find a testing ground. The
fields near their home in Ohio were too level, and their firm
unyielding surface was not attractive as a cushion on which to light
in the