results, it proved that if a lighter but more powerful engine
could be made, the chief difficulty iii the way of aerial flight
would be removed. This was soon forthcoming in the invention of
the petrol motor. In a lecture to the Scottish Aeronautical
Society, delivered in Glasgow in November, 1913, Sir Hiram
claimed to be the inventor of the first machine which actually
rose from the earth. Before the distinguished inventor spoke of
his own work in aviation he recalled experiments made by his
father in 1856-7, when Sir Hiram was sixteen years of age. The
flying machine designed by the elder Maxim consisted of a small
platform, which it was proposed to lift directly into the air by
the action of two screw-propellers revolving in reverse
directions. For a motor the inventor intended to employ some
kind of explosive material, gunpowder preferred, but the lecturer
distinctly remembered that his father said that if an apparatus
could be successfully navigated through the air it would be of
such inevitable value as a military engine that no matter how
much it might cost to run it would be used by Governments.

Of his own claim as an inventor of air-craft it would be well to
quote Sir Hiram's actual words, as given by the Glasgow Herald,
which contained a full report of the lecture.

"Some forty years ago, when I commenced to think of the subject,
my first idea was to lift my machint by vertical propellers, and
I actually commenced drawings and made calculations for a machine
on that plan, using an oil motor, or something like a Brayton
engine, for motive power. However, I was completely unable to
work out any system which would not be too heavy to lift itself
directly into the air, and it was only when I commenced to study