SCIENCE AND INVENTION 243 



A still more fitting tribute to the memory of the 

 great inveiitor came two years later from a success- 

 ful aviator. In the spring of 1914 Mr. Glenn H. 

 Curtiss was invited to send apparatus to Washing- 

 ton for the Langley Day Celebration. He expressed 

 the desire to put the Langley aeroplane itself in the 

 air. The machine was taken to the Curtiss Aviation 

 Field at Keuka Lake, New York. Langley's method 

 of launching had been proved practical, but Curtiss 

 finally decided to start from the water, and accord- 

 ingly fitted the aeroplane with hydroaeroplane floats. 

 In spite of the great increase in weight involved by 

 this addition, the Langley aeroplane, under its own 

 power plant, skimmed over the wavelets, rose from 

 the lake, and soared gracefully in the air, maintain- 

 ing its equilibrium, on May 28, 1914, over eight 

 years after the death of its designer. When furnished 

 with an eighty horse-power motor, more suited to its 

 increased weight, the aerodrome planed easily over the 

 water in more prolonged flight. In the periodical 

 publications of June, 1914, may be read the eloquent 

 announcement : " Langley's Folly Flies." 



