equilibrium at the end of the trial. Ader repeated the
construction, and on October 14th, 1897, tried out his third
machine at the military establishment at Satory in the presence
of the French military authorities, on a circular track
specially prepared for the experiment. Ader and his friends
alleged that a flight of nearly a thousand feet was made; again
the machine was wrecked at the end of the trial, and there
Ader's practical work may be said to have ended, since no more
funds were forthcoming for the subsidy of experiments.

There is the bald narrative, but it is worthy of some
amplification. If Ader actually did what he claimed, then the
position which the Wright Brothers hold as first to navigate the
air in a power-driven plane is nullified. Although at this time
of writing it is not a quarter of a century since Ader's
experiment in the presence of witnesses competent to judge on
his accomplishment, there is no proof either way, and whether he
was or was not the first man to fly remains a mystery in the
story of the conquest of the air.

The full story of Ader's work reveals a persistence and
determination to solve the problem that faced him which was
equal to that of Lilienthal. He began by penetrating into the
interior of Algeria after having disguised himself as an Arab,
and there he spent some months in studying flight as practiced
by the vultures of the district. Returning to France in 1886 he
began to construct the 'Eole,' modelling it, not on the vulture,
but in the shape of a bat. Like the Lilienthal and Pilcher
gliders this machine was fitted with wings which could be
folded; the first flight made, as already noted, on October 9th,