SMITHSONIAN CONTKIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE VOL. -i 



Mr. Reed, the foreman, who was qualified to observe accurately, not only 

 through his having worked continuously for many years on the machines, but 

 also from his having witnessed the numerous tests of the models, states that 

 from Ids position near the rear end of the launching track he noticed that at a 

 point about ten feel before the machine reached the end of the track the Penaud 

 tail seemed to have dropped at the rear end in some inexplicable way so that 

 it was dragging against the cross-pieces of the track, and that at the next in- 

 stant, when the car reached the end of the track, he saw the machine continue 

 onward, hut the rudder and whole rear portion of the frame and the wings 

 seemed to he dragging on the launching car. Mr. McDonald, the head machin- 

 ist, states that he had his attention so concentrated on the engine, which he 

 noticed was working perfectly and driving the propellers at a higher rate of 

 speed I linn he had ever before seen it do, that he did not see anything happen 

 until he saw the machine shoot upward in the air, gradually attaining a verti- 

 cal position with its bow upward, where it was sustained for a few moments by 

 the upward thrust of the propellers. After a \\'\v moments, however, the strong 

 wind, which was blowing from twelve to eighteen miles an hour directly ahead 

 and acting against the wings which were now vertical, drove the machine bad? 

 wards towards the house-boat, and he saw it come down into the water on its 

 hack, with the writer gradually righting himself in accordance with the turn- 

 ing of the machine until he was finally hidden from view by the machine com- 

 ing down on top of him. The witnesses on the "tug-boats seem not to have been 

 able to perceive exactly what occurred. All unite in stating that something 

 seemed to happen to the machine just a few feet before the launching ear 

 reached the end of the track, but what it was they could not say. Everyone 

 who saw the accident and who was sufficiently familiar with the construction of 

 the machine to he able intuitively to form an idea as to just what was taking 

 place was so very close to the machine that when the accident happened every- 

 thing seemed to merge into one vision, which was that of the whole rear of 

 the wings and rudder being completely destroyed as the machine shot upward 

 at a rapidly increasing angle until it reached the vertical position previously 

 mentioned. 



The writer can only say that from his position in the front end of the inn 

 chine, where he was facing forward and where Ids main attention was directed 

 towards insuring that the engine was performing at its best, he was unable to 

 see anything that occurred at the rear of the machine, but that just before the 

 machine was freed from the launching car he felt an extreme swaying motion 

 immediately followed by a tremendous jerk which caused the machine to quiver 

 all over, and almost instantly he found t he machine dashing ahead with its bow 

 rising at a very rapid rate, ami that he. therefore, swung the wheel which con 

 trols the Penaud tail to its extreme downward limit of motion. Finding that 



