In spite, however, of the whitewashing of the monoplane by the Government Committee just mentioned, considerable stir was occasioned later in the year by the decision of the War Office not to order any more monoplanes; and from this time forward until the War period the British Army was provided exclusively with biplanes. Even prior to this the popularity of the monoplane had begun to wane. At the Olympia Aero Show in March, 1913, biplanes for the first time outnumbered the ‘single-deckers’ (as the Germans call monoplanes); which had the effect of reducing the wing-loading. In the case of the biplanes exhibited this averaged about 4½ lbs. per square foot, while in the case of the monoplanes in the same exhibition the lowest was 5½ lbs., and the highest over 8½ lbs. per square foot of area. It may here be mentioned that it was not until the War period that the importance of loading per horse-power was recognised as the true criterion of aeroplane efficiency, far greater interest being displayed in the amount of weight borne per unit area of wing. An idea of the state of development arrived at about this time may be gained from the fact that the Commandant of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps in a lecture before the Royal Aeronautical Society read in February, 1913, asked for single-seater scout aeroplanes with a speed of 90 miles an hour and a landing speed of 45 miles an hour--a performance which even two years later would have been considered modest in the extreme. It serves to show that, although higher performances were put up by individual machines on occasion, the general development had not yet reached the stage when such performances could be obtained in machines suitable for military purposes. So far as seaplanes were concerned, up to the beginning of 1913 little attempt had been made to study the novel problems involved, and the bulk of the machines at the Monaco Meeting in April, 1913, for instance, consisted of land machines fitted with floats, in many cases of a most primitive nature, without other alterations. Most of those which succeeded in leaving the water did so through sheer pull of engine power; while practically all were incapable of getting off except in a fair sea, which enabled the pilot to jump the machine into the air across the trough between two waves. Stability problems had not yet been considered, and in only one or two cases was fin area added at the rear high up, to counterbalance the effect of the floats low down in front. Both twin and single-float machines were used, while the flying boat was only just beginning to come into being from the workshops of Sopwith in Great Britain, Borel-Denhaut in France, and Curtiss in America. In view of the approaching importance of amphibious seaplanes, mention should be made of the flying boat (or ‘bat boat’ as it was called, following Rudyard Kipling) which was built by Sopwith in 1913 with a wheeled landing-carriage which could be wound up above the