146 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



Avery, and myself) without any accidents — not even a single sprained 

 ankle. The only thing v^e had to deplore was the fact that my son, 

 in making one flight, tore his trousers. An account of these experi- 

 ments was published in the journal of this society for October, 1897, 

 and subsequently an account was also published in the Aeronautical 

 Annual, Boston, in 1897. That publication contained the statement 

 that it was thought that these experiments were promising, and I 

 gave an invitation to other experimenters to improve upon our prac- 

 tice. That invitation remained unaccepted until March, 1900, when 

 Wilbur Wright wrote to me, making inquiries as to the construction 

 of the machine, materials to be used, the best place to experiment, 

 etc. He said that he had notions of his own that he wanted to try, and 

 knew of no better way of spending his vacation. All that information 

 was gladly furnished. Mr. Wright wrote me an account, subse- 

 quently, of his experiments in 1900, which gave such encouraging 

 results that each year thereafter the brothers carried on further ex- 

 periments in North Carolina and at Dayton, Ohio. 



On the 18th of September, 1901, Wilbur Wright read a paper be- 

 fore this society, in which he gave an account of what he had done 

 up to that time. 



Again, on the 24th of June, 1903, Mr. Wright read a second paper 

 before this society, giving an account of his progress since 1901. Late 

 in the year 1903 the Wrights aj^plied a motor to their gliding ma- 

 chine, which by that time they had under perfect control, and they 

 made their first flights on the 17th of December, 1903. (I might 

 mention that I was present on each of the years during part of the 

 experiments.) At that time Wilbur Wright expressed his intention 

 of giving to this society the first technical paper on the subject which 

 he furnished to anyone. He said he had already promised to give 

 a popular account in the Century Magazine, but that a technical 

 paper, giving an account of the results and the laws which had been 

 observed, would be reserved for this society. 



In 1905 Mr. Wright told me it had dawned upon him that there 

 was some money to be made by selling the invention to governments 

 for war purposes, and that he would defer giving a technical paper 

 to our society. He considered that his invention would be more 

 valuable if, with the machine, he could give the secrets of construc- 

 tion and laws which have been observed. I do not know whether the 

 paper has been written, but I hope you will get it some day. 



Of the early flying exjjeriments which had been made previous 

 to that time I will mention but two. 



Plate 1, figure 1, represents the Maxim machine of 1894. Mr. Maxim 

 built an enormous apparatus, weighing 8,000 pounds and spreading 

 4,000 feet of surface, moved by a steam engine of 360 horsepower. 

 That machine was run upon a track of 9 feet gauge a good many 



