THE CHARM OF CAPE BRETOX ISLAND 



49 



HAULING THE HD-4 INTO HER HOUSE 



The illustration shows very clearly the two sets of hydrofoils (resembling ladders), on 

 which the boat rises from the water as she gathers speed. The faster she goes the higher 

 she rises from the water, until she is supported solely by the lowest blades, as is very graph- 

 ically shown on page 48. 



tory, which resulted in the flat disk rec- 

 ord, with its "sound-reproducing, later- 

 ally undulating- groove in a wax-like 

 tablet" that is universally used today. 

 The Beinn Bhreagh Laboratory did not 

 share in this work; it was not in ex- 

 istence then ; so the flat disk "phono- 

 graphs," as Dr. Bell called those first 

 records, are in the National Museum at 

 Washington, instead of in the little one 

 at Beinn Bhreagh. 



But there is a fascinating collection of 

 apparatus similar to that used in the de- 

 velopment of the photophone ; there are 

 models of the giant man-carrying kites 

 of tetrahedral-cell construction which 

 preceded Graham Bell's work in the 

 heavier-than-air flying machine, and a 

 whole series of models of aerial pro- 

 pellers tested out here in the infancy of 

 the modern flying-machine. 



From his boyhood Graham Bell had 

 believed in mechanical flight, and he was 



working on kite structures when Samuel 

 Pierpont Langley visited him in Cape 

 Breton in 1894. It was Graham Bell who 

 encouraged Langley's work in aerodromics 

 at a time when even the radical minds in 

 the scientific world looked askance at the 

 man who would fly. And he was the sole 

 witness, other than Langley's workmen, 

 of that historic flight at Ouantico, Va., in 

 May, 1896, of which Dr. Bell has said : 



"The sight of Langley's steam aero- 

 drome circling in the sky convinced me 

 that the age of the flying-machine was 

 at hand." 



cape breton's contribution toward 

 the mastery of the air 



For the next ten years Graham Bell 

 devoted himself to the perfection of his 

 tetrahedral kites. On December 6, 1907, 

 the giant Cygnet No. 1 made an ascent 

 of 168 feet above the waters of the Bras 



