108 EXPERIMENTS IN AERODYNAMICS. 



novel truth, already announced, immediately follows from what has been shown, 

 that whereas in land or marine transport increased speed is maintained only by 

 a disjDi'oportionate expenditure of power, within the limits of experiment in such 

 aerial horizontal transport, the higher speeds are more economical of power than the 

 lower ones. 



While calling attention to these imjiortant and as yet little known truths, I 

 desire to add as a final caution, that I have not asserted that planes such as are 

 here employed in experiment, or even that planes of any kind, are the best forms 

 to use in mechanical flight, and that I have also not asserted, without qualification, 

 that mechanical flight is practically possible, since this involves questions as to 

 the method of constructing the mechanism, of securing its safe ascent and descent, 

 and also of securing the indispensable condition for the economic use of the power 

 I have shown to be at our disposal — the condition, I mean, of our ability to guide 

 it in the desired horizontal direction during transport, — questions which, in my 

 opinion, are only to be answered by further experiment, and which belong to the 

 inchoate art or science of aerodromics, on which I do not enter. 



I wish, however, to j^ut on record my belief that the time has come for 

 these questions to engage the serious attention, not only of engineers, but of 

 all interested in the possibly near practical solution of a problem, one of the 

 most important in its consequences, of any which has ever presented itself in 

 mechanics ; for this solution, it is here shown, cannot longer be considered be3^ond 

 our capacity to reach. 



