of the great events making for the enlightenment, progress and elevation
of the race, it shall have fulfilled its mission and serve the purpose
for which it was written.




CHAPTER I

FLYING MACHINES

Early Attempts at Flight--The Dirigible--Professor Langley's
Experiment--The Wright Brothers--Count Zeppelin--Recent Aeroplane
Records.


It is hard to determine when men first essayed the attempt to fly. In
myth, legend and tradition we find allusions to aerial flight and from
the very dawn of authentic history, philosophers, poets, and writers
have made allusion to the subject, showing that the idea must have
early taken root in the restless human heart. Aeschylus exclaims:

"Oh, might I sit, sublime in air
Where watery clouds the freezing snows prepare!"

Ariosto in his "Orlando Furioso" makes an English knight, whom he names
Astolpho, fly to the banks of the Nile; nowadays the authors are trying
to make their heroes fly to the North Pole.

Some will have it that the ancient world had a civilization much higher