SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY. 
21 
on such portions of the machinery as were patentable, in 
order that commercial reward might come to the persons 
furnishing the money, but he steadfastly refused either to 
secure a patent or to accept money from private persons. He 
declared that this work was solely in the interest of the 
nation, and if the nation was not prepared to support it, 
he was not willing to proceed with it. As far as I can learn, 
he never wavered in his belief that success would result from 
his work. Aerial navigation was, in his opinion, sure to 
come, and the very machine which was declared by the public 
press to have been wrecked beyond hope, he had repaired in 
absolute condition for another trial. 
It is a gratification to be able to record that the last paper 
that he ever read was a series of resolutions adopted by the 
Aero Club at New York city, expressing appreciation of his 
work in behalf of aerial navigation and confidence in the 
directions which it had taken, and any reader of the currenl 
magazines or the daily press can see for himself that, in spite 
of criticism and ridicule, the principles which he discovered 
are more and more gaining recognition. The future of 
aerial navigation lies not in the direction of the balloon, 
which is being abandoned even by its most ardent votaries, 
but in that of the aeroplane; and, whatever form this may 
take or whatever modifications may be made as the result of 
experiment, the laws of aerodynamics will be the laws which 
Mr. Langley discovered ; and the aeroplane, or other form of 
machine heavier than the air, will be based upon the models 
which he made and which actually flew. 
The tributes in recognition of his work are almost too 
numerous to recite. He received the degree of D. C. L. 
from Oxford, D. Sc. from Cambridge, and, among numerous 
others, the degree of LL. D. from the universities of Har- 
vard, Princeton, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He was awarded 
the Henry Draper Medal by the National Academy of 
Sciences, the Rumford Medal by the Royal Society of Lon- 
don, and the Rumford Medal by the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences, as well as the Janssen Medal from the 
