Montgomery landed on his head and right hip. He did not believe
himself seriously hurt, and talked with his year-old bride in
the tent. He complained of pains in his back, and continued to
grow worse until he died.'



IX. NOT PROVEN

The early history of flying, like that of most sciences, is
replete with tragedies; in addition to these it contains one
mystery concerning Clement Ader, who was well known among
European pioneers in the development of the telephone, and first
turned his attention to the problems of mechanical flight in
1872. At the outset he favoured the ornithopter principle,
constructing a machine in the form of a bird with a wing-spread
of twenty-six feet; this, according to Ader's conception, was to
fly through the efforts of the operator. The result of such an
attempt was past question and naturally the machine never left
the ground.

A pause of nineteen years ensued, and then in 1886 Ader turned
his mind to the development of the aeroplane, constructing a
machine of bat-like form with a wingspread of about forty-six
feet, a weight of eleven hundred pounds, and a steam-power plant
of between twenty and thirty horse-power driving a four-bladed
tractor screw. On October 9th, 1890, the first trials of this
machine were made, and it was alleged to have flown a distance
of one hundred and sixty-four feet. Whatever truth there may be
in the allegation, the machine was wrecked through deficient