Thus Wenham, one of the best theorists of his age. The Society
with which this paper connects his name has done work, between
that time and the present, of which the importance cannot be
overestimated, and has been of the greatest value in the
development of aeronautics, both in theory and experiment. The
objects of the Society are to give a stronger impulse to the
scientific study of aerial navigation, to promote the
intercourse of those interested in the subject at home and
abroad, and to give advice and instruction to those who study
the principles upon which aeronautical science is based. From
the date of its foundation the Society has given special study
to dynamic flight, putting this before ballooning. Its library,
its bureau of advice and information, and its meetings, all
assist in forwarding the study of aeronautics, and its
twenty-three early Annual Reports are of considerable value,
containing as they do a large amount of useful information on
aeronautical subjects, and forming practically the basis of
aeronautical science.

Ante to Wenham, Stringfellow and the French experimenters
already noted, by some years, was Le Bris, a French sea captain,
who appears to have required only a thorough scientific training
to have rendered him of equal moment in the history of gliding
flight with Lilienthal himself. Le Bris, it appears, watched
the albatross and deduced, from the manner in which it supported
itself in the air, that plane surfaces could be constructed and
arranged to support a man in like manner. Octave Chanute,
himself a leading exponent of gliding, gives the best
description of Le Bris's experiments in a work, Progress in
Flying Machines, which, although published as recently as I