event of disaster. Moreover the people round about were
getting inquisitive about these grown men "fooling around" with
kites and flying toys. To the last the Wrights were noted for their
dislike of publicity, and it is entirely probable that the sneering
criticisms of their "level headed" and "practical" neighbours had a
good deal to do with rooting them in this distaste.

Low steep hills down the sides of which they could run and at the
proper moment throw themselves upon their glider; a sandy soil which
would at least lessen the shock of a tumble; and a vicinage in which
winds of eighteen miles an hour or more is the normal atmospheric
state were the conditions they sought. These they found at a little
hamlet called Kitty-Hawk on the coast of North Carolina. There for
uncounted centuries the tossing Atlantic had been throwing up its
snowy sand upon the shore, and the steady wind had caught it up,
piled it in windrows, rolled it up into towering hills, or carried
it over into the dunes which extended far inland. It was a lonely
spot, and there secure from observation the Wrights pitched their
camp. For them it was a midsummer's holiday. Not at first did they
decide to make aviation not a sport but a profession. To their camp
came visitors interested in the same study, among them Chanute, a
well-known experimenter, and some of his associates. They had
thought to give hours at a time to actual flight. When they closed
their first season, they found that all their time spent in actual
flight footed up less than an hour. Lilienthal, despite all he
accomplished, estimated that he, up to a short time before his
death, spent only about five hours actually in the air. In that
early day of experimentation a glide covering one hundred feet, and
consuming eight or ten seconds, was counted a triumph.

[Illustration: Chanute's Glider.]

But the season was by no means wasted. Indeed such was the estimate
that the Wrights put upon it that they folded their tents determined
that when they returned the year following it would be as
professionals, not amateurs. They were confident of their ability to
build machines that would fly, though up to that time they had never
mounted a motor on their aircraft.

In the clear hot air of a North Carolina midsummer the Wrights used
to lie on their backs studying through glasses the methods of flight
of the great buzzards--filthy scavenger birds which none the less
soaring high aloft against