hines in which, by the aid of gasolene motors,
long flights have been made.

Developments by the Wrights.

In 1900 the Wright brothers, William and Orville, who were then in
the bicycle business in Dayton, Ohio, became interested in Chanute's
experiments and communicated with him. The result was that the Wrights
took up Chanute's ideas and developed them further, making many
additions of their own, one of which was the placing of a rudder in
front, and the location of the operator horizontally on the machine,
thus diminishing by four-fifths the wind resistance of the man's
body. For three years the Wrights experimented with the glider before
venturing to add a motor, which was not done until they had thoroughly
mastered the control of their movements in the air.

Limits of the Flying Machine.

In the opinion of competent experts it is idle to look for a commercial
future for the flying machine. There is, and always will be, a limit to
its carrying capacity which will prohibit its employment for passenger
or freight purposes in a wholesale or general way. There are some, of
course, who will argue that because a machine will carry two people
another may be constructed that will carry a dozen, but those who make
this contention do not understand the theory of weight sustentation in
the air; or that the greater the load the greater must be the lifting
power (motors and plane surface), and that there is a limit to these--as
will be explained later on--beyond which the aviator cannot go.

Some Practical Uses.

At the same time there are fields in which the flying machine may be
used to great advantage. These are:

Sports--Flying machine races or flights will always be popular by reason
of the element of danger. It is a strange, but nevertheless a true
proposition, that it is this element which adds zest to all sporting
events.

Scientific--For exploration of otherwise inaccessible regions such as
deserts, mountain tops, etc.

Reconnoitering--In time of war flying machines may be used to advantage
to spy out an enemy's encampment, ascertain its defenses, etc.

CHAPTER III. MECHANICAL BIRD ACTION

In order to understand the theory of the modern flying machine one must
also understand bird action and wind action. In this connection the
following simple experiment will be of interest:

Take a circular-shaped bit of cardboard, like the lid of a hat box, and
remove the bent-over portion so as to have a perfectly