230 The Smithsonian Institution 



an engine decreases with the number of its horse-power, so 

 that there seems no reason to doubt that what Professor 

 Langley has done on a small scale may be done on a large 

 one, and very shortly at that. 



" Professor Langley's machine measures but fourteen feet 

 from tip to tip ; weighs, complete, twenty-four pounds, is sol- 

 idly built of steel, and, compared with the air which supports 

 it, has a weight of a thousand to one. It has no balloon 

 arrangements of any sort, and instead of trying to build a 

 vessel lighter than the air and filling it with gases to make 

 it rise, Professor Langley has practically built a machine as 

 heavy as he likes and relied upon its shape and power for 

 successful flight. 



" This is just the opposite of what almost every other ex- 

 perimenter in this field has tried to do, although it was appar- 

 ent to every one that a flying machine, to be of any commer- 

 cial or practical value whatever, would have to be heavy 

 enough and powerful enough to drive straight against or 

 across and in and out of the stoutest gale that blows. Other- 

 wise it would forever be at the mercy of the element. What 

 was necessary was a ship that would ride a storm in the air 

 as a great ocean liner rides a storm at sea. 



" Professor Langley has been very careful to say that he 

 never expressed his opinion that man could fly of his own 

 strength. But he has demonstrated that powerful machines 

 thousands of times as heavy as the air itself can be built to 

 navigate the air." 



VI. 



CONCERNING the administrative side of Secretary Langley's 

 work during the past ten years, it seems scarcely necessary 

 to speak at length in this place. The story told by this vol- 

 ume, at the end of his first ten years of service, is ample evi- 

 dence that the efficiency of the Smithsonian organization has 

 not diminished while under his charge, and that the care of 

 this, rather than of his scientific pursuits, has occupied the 



