MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



ing rods. But Langley attacked the problem from a 

 different angle, and produced a model flying machine, 

 with two pairs of canvas wings set tandem and having 

 a spread of eleven feet, which, driven by a light motor 

 of special construction, made a wonderful flight above 

 the Potomac and settled to the water uninjured. 



But Langley's larger flying machine, constructed 

 on the model of his "aerodrome" plunged into the 

 Potomac River in the attempt at launching, December 

 8, 1903. The inventor was heart-broken; and the 

 entire public chorussed "I told you so," and gave 

 the matter no further thought. 



The entire public? Not quite; for among the 

 seventy odd million of the American people there was 

 an undistinguished minority of two individuals who 

 differed from their fellows as to the feasibility of hu- 

 man flight. These two were Wilbur and Orville 

 Wright, obscure bicycle dealers of the little town of 

 Dayton, Ohio. While Maxim and Langley, each in 

 his way, had been making strictly scientific experi- 

 ments these young men, aided neither by private 

 fortune nor public subsidy, had been devoting their 

 spare time to experiments in gliding, following up the 

 work of the ill-fated Lilienthal and of Messrs. Herring 

 and Avery and Chanute. 



They had invented a new type of bi-plane glider, 

 and had learned to manipulate it with unexampled 

 skill. 



Finally they attached a gas engine and some wood- 

 en propellers to the glider, and on the 17th of Decem- 

 ber, 1903, little over a week after the final mishap to 

 Langley's machine, they put their strange new craft 



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