The mystery which has for so long surrounded the Wright aeroplane has at length been cleared away, and the principles of the invention, about which 8 great deal has been said and written during the past three years, are now known. The brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, claimed to have flown about thirty miles, but, owing to the justifiable jealousy with which they guarded their communi people knew whether secret, only a few privileged and un-
there was any foundation for the claim. To the world at large, the Wrights were simply an unknown quantity. In France there was a tendency to accuse them of bluffing, although, as a matter of fact, they never talked about their invention and never established any comparisons between what they and their rivals had accomplished. Negotiations went on " long 16 between ¢lthe Wrights and several European governments, including the French. The machine was brought over to France and lay undisturbed in its packing cases for nearly a year. At length a French syndicate entered into a contract to buy the French patents for £20,000, on condition that the machine should twice fly " distance of fifty kilometres in less than ao hour and against or with a moderately strong wind. Another condition was that the machine should carry two men and sufficient petrol to travel 200 kilometres. As soon as this contract was signed, Mr. Wilbur Wright set to work to get his apparatus ready for the trial flights. He selected the race-course at Hunandires, about five miles from Lo Mans, and daring the past week he has made several flights which show that although his apparatus is not by any means perfect, it is one of the most remarkable now in the field. He has flown compara-ively short distances which have been rxoeeded by European aeroplanists, but what has impressed the spectators is the apparent ease with which he was able to steer in any direction and come to the ground like a bird, His machine consists of two parallel surfaces made of wooden strets covered with canvas and connected by uprights, Between these two surfaces, and slightly to the right of the centre, the motor, with the seats for the driver and passenger to the left. In front is a rudder, consisting, like the body of the apparatus, of two parallel surfaces. This rudder is worked by levers under the driver's hand. In the rear are two wooden propellers revolving in opposite directions. The motor devo-lops about twenty-seven horse-power and gives less than five hundred revolutions minute, which is only about half the power used in French aeroplanes of the same class, The Wright machine is in fact distinguished by economy of force and reduction of perpendicular surfaces
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.