76 



SCIENCE. 



[K S. Vol. XIX. No. 471. 



portant results of the work carried on by and 

 stimulated by DeVries will be to show another 

 way in which partial segregation may be se- 

 cured, and the theory of natural selection 

 needs all the help it can get from segregation. 



It should hardly be necessary to urge that, 

 in understanding the development of the con- 

 ditions which prevail to-day among organisms, 

 the problem of the origin of species seems of 

 very secondary importance in comparison with 

 the problem of the perfection of adaptation. 

 Maynabd M. Metoalf. 



The Woman's College of Baltimore. 



WILBUR Wright's successful flight in a 



MOTOR-DRIVEN aeroplane. 



The newspapers of December 18 contained 

 the announcement that Wilbur Wright had 

 flown a distance of three miles with an aero- 

 plane propelled by a 16-horse power, four- 

 cylinder, gasoline motor, the whole weighing 

 more than 700 pounds. To the average news- 

 paper reader this meant no more than similar 

 statements previously made in the newspapers 

 that men had flovm in New York, or St. Louis, 

 or San Francisco. But to the student of 

 aeronautics, and particularly to those who 

 had followed the careful scientific experiments 

 with aeroplanes which were being made by Or- 

 ville and Wilbur Wright, it meant an epoch in 

 the progress of invention and achievement, 

 perhaps as great as that when Stevenson first 

 drove a locomotive along a railroad. 



It meant that after ages of endeavor man 

 had at last been able to support himself in 

 the air as does a bird and to land in safety 

 at a spot chosen in advance. 



The report from an authoritative source 

 confirms the fact of this flight, but modifies 

 the details somewhat from those given in the 

 newspapers. It appears that four successful 

 flights were made in a motor-driven aeroplane 

 on December 17 near Kitty Hawk, N. 0. 

 The wind was blowing about 21 miles an 

 hour and a speed relative to the wind of 31 

 miles an hour was attained by the aeroplane. 

 This meant a speed of 10 miles an hour rela- 

 tive to the ground. The aeroplane had a 

 surface of 510 square feet and in the longest 

 flight was in the air 57 seconds. The aeroplane 



is said to have risen from a level. The re- 

 ported distance of three miles was probably 

 relative to the wind. 



The earlier work of the Wright brothers is 

 described in the reports of the Western So- 

 ciety of Engineers and in part republished in 

 the Annual Keport of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution for 1902. Their invention of a for- 

 ward rudder has contributed to the final suc- 

 cess. 



The modern success in aeronautics may be 

 said, I think, to date from the feat of Otto 

 Lilienthal in 1891 in gliding down an incline 

 in an aeroplane. These glides were repeated 

 with much success and with an improvised 

 aeroplane by Mr. Chanute and Mr. Herring in 

 our own country. Mr. Herring even went so 

 far as to carry with him 50 pounds of sand in 

 his aeroplane which weight he computed would 

 be that of an engine sufficient to support him. 



Mr. Pilcher, in England, repeated these ex- 

 periments on a level by rising into the air 

 in his machine when drawn by a horse attached 

 to a rope, the machine rising like a kite and 

 then gliding forwai-d. Mr. Whitehead is de- 

 scribed in the Scientific American as having 

 repeated this experiment recently in Connecti- 

 cut with a motor on board the aeroplane. 



In the meantime, in 1896, Dr. Langley had 

 driven a model weighing about 25 pounds 

 through the air with a small steam-engine, and 

 Sir Hiram Maxim had performed the wonder- 

 ful feat of lifting 7,000 pounds into the air 

 for a moment. This . was done with an aero- 

 plane having 5,000 square feet of surface 

 driven by serial screws attached to a steam- 

 engine of 360 horse-power and of extraordin- 

 ary lightness. 



But, notwithstanding all these partial suc- 

 cesses, there was, owing to the recently re- 

 ported failure of Dr. Langley to lift a man 

 and to other causes, a wide skepticism as to 

 the possibility of human flight. 



Mr. Wright's success in rising and landing 

 safely with a motor-driven aeroplane is a 

 crowning achievement showing the possibility 

 of human flight. Much yet remains to be 

 done, but with the stimulus of this beginning 

 progress will probably be rapid. In the prog- 

 ress now achieved a great deal is due to Mr. 



