of decreased speed, and what an eager, restless
campaign is being waged to go faster and faster,
and the addition of every mile above the record
is hailed as another illustration of the perfection
(?) of the flying machine.

To be able to navigate a machine at ten, or fifteen
miles an hour, would scarcely be interesting
enough to merit a paragraph; but such an accomplishment
would be of far more value than all of
Pequod's feats, and be more far-reaching in its
effects than a flight of two hundred miles per hour.



CHAPTER VIII

KITES AND GLIDERS


KITES are of very ancient origin, and in China,
Japan, and the Malayan Peninsula, they have been
used for many years as toys, and for the purposes
of exhibiting forms of men, animals, and particularly
dragons, in their periodical displays.

THE DRAGON KITE.--The most noted of all are
the dragon kites, many of them over a hundred
feet in length, are adapted to sail along majestically,
their sinuous or snake-like motions lending