22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS. 



pose. It is clear that in this matter he was led by a sense of patriotic 

 duty, for, as we have seen, he had virtually announced his intention, 

 in his work on Aerodynamics, not to carry his own work in flying- 

 machines further, but to leave it to others. 



He may also have been influenced by the fact that since the suc- 

 cessful flight of the first aerodrome, in 1896, a further possibility of 

 increased power wuth comparative lightness had come with the em- 

 ployment of the gas engine. A brief popular account of the subse- 

 quent experiments with the Langle\" aerodrome under these new con- 

 ditions appeared in 1905, but no extended memoir on the subject has 

 yet been published. In this popular account Doctor Langley de- 

 scribes the difficulties and discouragements met with in building the 

 new machine, and finally in the trials of it. The launching of the 

 test models had given a success which greatly encouraged him, but 

 the launching of the large machine, first on the 7th of October, 1903, 

 and again on the 8th of December of the same year, was not, appar- 

 ently, successful. 



Although the decision of the general public was unfavorable. 

 Doctor Langley 



" bated not one jot of heart or hope."' 



He insisted that, despite the failure in launching, there had been 

 no error detected in the principles he had relied upon or in the main 

 means of making them eft"ective, and that the practical problem was 

 in a fair way to solution. 



But there can be no doubt that, in spite of this continued faith in 

 the agencies and means employed, this failure in the machinery was 

 a serious blow to him — not so much because of the failure itself, for 

 he knew well that in the history of science great successes have come 

 most frequently after repeated failures. Had the experiments failed 

 in his laboratory or workshop, it would not have affected him ; but 

 it was impossible to make them save in the open air, before 

 the whole world. His arrangements with the Board of Ord- 

 nance and Fortification absolutely required that the details of the 

 construction should not be made public. The newspaper press of 

 the country, insisting upon information, misunderstanding his mo- 

 tives, and angered, possibly by the large expense connected with 

 maintaining special correspondents at an inconvenient place on the 

 Potomac River, possibly also by Langley's greater anxiety for the 

 outcome of his experiments than for the comfort of the corre- 

 spondents, finally imited in a chorus of ridicule and attack, which 

 in time made itself felt in the national legislature. His great repu- 



