200 THE LANGLEY AERODROME. 



that on a previous occasion I have seen a far higher velocity attained by the same 

 aerodrome when its course was horizontal. 



I have no desire to enter into detail further than I have done, but I can not but 

 add that it seems to me that no one who was present on this interesting occasion 

 could have failed to recognize that the practicability of mechanical flight had been 



demonstrated. 



Alexander Graham Bell. 



No adequate pictures have been made of the actual flight of the aero- 

 drome, which from the rapidity of its motion required very special 

 preparation; but Dr. Bell made on the uniquely interesting occasion 

 of the fii'st flight some photographs with a small pocket camera, from 

 which pictures have been taken. They are necessarily inadequate as 

 pictures, but they distinctly exhibit the aerodrome as a distant and 

 elevated object in the air. (PI. VI.) 



II. PAPER FROM m'cLURE's MAGAZINE. 



[To partly satisfy a public curiosity which could not be altogether 

 gratified, Mr. Langley wrote a wholl}" popular and untechnical account 

 of the work which had gone on up to June, 1896, in McClure's Maga- 

 zine. By the courtesj^ of the publishers he has been enabled to make 

 considerable extracts from this article, which are reprinted here. 



Attached to the present paper is an entirely mechanical reproduction 

 of an instantaneous photograph (Plate VI) taken by Dr. Alexander 

 Graham Bell, showing the aerodrome in actual flight, and which has 

 never before been published. The original was taken with a small 

 pocket camera and has been very greatly enlarged for the present 

 article. It is necessarily inadequate, considered as a picture, but it is 

 uniquely interesting as giving a distinct exhibit of the aerodrome as 

 a distant elevated object in the air. The woods beneath it are the 

 trees on the secluded island of Chopawamsic, near Quantico, on the 

 Virginia shore of the Potomac River about 30 miles below Washing- 

 ton, where the flight occurred on May 6, 1896.] 



THE ' ' FLYING MACHINE. " ^ 



* * * Nature has made her flying machine in the bird, which is 

 nearly a thousand times as heavy as the air its bulk displaces, and 

 only those who have tried to rival it know how inimitable her work is, 

 for the ""way of a bird in the air" remains as wonderftil to us as it 

 was to Solomon, and the sight of the bird has constantly held this 

 wonder before men's eyes and in some men's minds, and kept the flame of 

 hope from utter extinction, in spite of long disappointment. I well 

 remember how, as a child, when lying in a New England pasture, I 

 watched a hawk soaring far up in the blue, and sailing for a long time 



'Reprinted, by permission, from McClure's Magazine, June, 1897. See also Story 

 of Experiments in Mechanical Flight, by S. P. Langley, in Smithsonian Report, 

 1897, pp. 169-181. 



