AERIAL LOCOMOTION 43 1 



achieved by the Wright brothers should put the whole problem on a 

 very different footing and convince even the skeptical that the question 

 of success is now merely a question of degree. As people of means 

 who wish to perpetuate their name can do it in no better way than by 

 assisting in a substantial manner in the progress of scientific investiga- 

 tion, they will surely now be ready to furnish the funds necessary to 

 ensure more rapid progress in this work. 



We must remember that in these days work of this kind progresses 

 by leaps and bounds. It is barely seven years ago that the first annual 

 automobile show was held in Madison Square Garden, New York. 

 No attempt was made to utilize the galleries of the Garden and practi- 

 cally the entire area of the main floor was given over to a track which 

 was used for demonstrating to the audience the fact that an automobile 

 could be stopped in a very much shorter distance than a horse-drawn 

 vehicle going at the same speed. The management in charge of this 

 show, in order to fill up space, even provided seats which were ar- 

 ranged for the convenience of the visitors. Last winter, just six years 

 after that date, instead of one show occupying only a small portion of 

 the Garden, there were two shows of about equal size held simultan- 

 eously in New York, and the one which was held in the Garden not 

 only filled it from cellar to roof, but the streets all around were filled 

 with demonstrating machines, and instead of seats being provided, it 

 was necessary to have policemen to see that the people followed the 

 proper circuit of the building so that the crowd should be kept moving 

 and all might have a chance to view the exhibition. As the outcome 

 of industry which six years ago amounted to nothing, we have in the 

 United States to-day something like ten million dollars invested in 

 approximately 75 manufacturing establishments which, during the 

 year which is just closing, have produced more than fifty thou- 

 sand machines, and instead of the automobile being ridiculed by the 

 cartoonist as a chimerical dream it has become the chariot of the mil- 

 lionaire and the freight truck of the industrial world, hauling goods 

 and ore from the steamship piers and the mines. 



Realizing that this enormous progress has been made in the short 

 period of less than a decade, it is only a pessimist of the deepest dye 

 who would dare predict that the next decade will not see not only 

 enormous strides in the progress of aerodromics, but also the aero- 

 drome itself an important factor in human affairs. 



For thousands of years man was content to travel no faster than his 

 ancestors, but the advent of the steam locomotive followed by that of 

 the electric car has quickened the inventive genius of the world to its 



