inside in which Lilienthal stored his machines. Pilcher, in his
paper on 'Gliding,' [*] gives an excellent short summary of
Lilienthal's experiments, from which the following extracts are
taken:--

[*] Aeronautical Classes, No. 5. Royal Aeronautical Society's
publications.

'At first Lilienthal used to experiment by jumping off a
springboard with a good run. Then he took to practicing on some
hills close to Berlin. In the summer of 1892 he built a
flat-roofed hut on the summit of a hill, from the top of which
he used to jump, trying, of course, to soar as far as possible
before landing.... One of the great dangers with a soaring
machine is losing forward speed, inclining the machine too much
down in front, and coming down head first. Lilienthal was the
first to introduce the system of handling a machine in the air
merely by moving his weight about in the machine; he always
rested only on his elbows or on his elbows and shoulders....

'In 1892 a canal was being cut, close to where Lilienthal lived,
in the suburbs of Berlin, and with the surplus earth Lilienthal
had a special hill thrown up to fly from. The country round is
as flat as the sea, and there is not a house or tree near it to
make the wind unsteady, so this was an ideal practicing ground;
for practicing on natural hills is generally rendered very
difficult by shifty and gusty winds.... This hill is 50 feet
high, and conical. Inside the hill there is a cave for the
machines to be kept in.... When Lilienthal made a good flight he
used to land 300 feet from the centre of the hill, having come