2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I4O 



essence of his ideas and conversations in "Waste Books," and he 

 would occasionally confirm these by letters to the persons involved. 

 On one occasion after visiting with Manly, Langley returned to 

 his office and there on March 9, 1902, wrote : 



Dear Sir: 



It occurs to me to take a note of what I said to you on Saturday, the 8th 

 instant, in the upper shop of the South Shed,- though it is of no immediate prac- 

 tical use. It is that the ultimate development of the flying machine is likely to be 

 an affair of very small wings or no wings at all, and that it may depend for its 

 velocity on what Mr. Bell ^ calls 'its momentum' in the same way that an arrow 

 or any other missile flies. It is known that the arrow derives its energy from the 

 bow which projects it and that when this is spent the arrow will drop. We have, 

 however, only to renew this energy and when renewed the source is immaterial 

 and the result is the same, wherever the energy originates, for the arrow may 

 still be heading upward without limit, as in the case of a rocket which has no 

 wings but goes very much better without them, renewing its energy by recoil. 

 Here is an additional analogy for the success of the greatest soaring birds with 

 small wings. In anj' case it is a thing which deserves thinking over. 



Very respectfully yours, 



(signed) S. P. Langley, 



Secretary. 

 Mr. C. M. Manly 



Aid in Aerodromics 



Smithsouian Institution * 



Did experimenters in aeronautics turn first to the development of 

 the wrong types of aircraft? For centuries the graceful flight of the 

 birds had called men like a Lorelei. While the balloon and airship 

 offered a cumbersome solution to the age-old search for a device with 

 which men might rise into the air, it was the secret of lift on sustain- 

 ing surfaces, the secret of the soaring birds, which gave men the 

 clue for the airplane. In 1902 Langley, while developing the large 

 aerodrome, was also engaged in a project of photographing birds in 

 flight and preparing a study based upon information obtained. Then 

 this concept of a rocket thrust itself into his versatile mind. Now we 

 know that scientists have developed the idea of a rocket beyond the 

 stage of "thinking over" and into the stage of practical use. As 



2 The South Shed is a small frame building in which the Langley Aerodromes 

 were constructed. It is on the Independence Avenue side of the Smithsonian 

 Institution Building and is now used as a cabinet shop. 



3 Alexander Graham Bell, a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and sup- 

 porter of aeronautical activities, using his fortune amassed through the invention 

 of the telephone. 



* Langley to Manly, March 9, 1902, "Board of Ordnance and Fortification 

 Correspondence Book No. 4, October 15, 1901-October 9, 1906," p. 26; Langley 

 Documents on Aerodromics, vol. 30. National Air Museum. 



