The same year, 1905, which crowned with most success the private flights of the Wright brothers, brought into unusual prominence the quarter century long experiments of Prof. J. J. Montgomery of Santa Clara College, Santa Clara, Cal. He had given much attention to the science of aviation, particularly to passive flight, and had constructed several successful gliders operated by himself or his friends. The most remarkable of these machines was a glider resembling in general appearance Langley’s tandem monoplane, but having means for changing the wing curvature during flight, thus varying the lift on such wing, and thereby enabling the operator to control the equilibrium and direction during his glides in the air. On April 29, 1905, a forty-five pound glider of this pattern bearing an intrepid parachute jumper, Daniel Maloney, was lifted from the college grounds by a hot-air balloon to an elevation of 4,000 feet, then cut loose. “In the course of the descent,” writes one of his pupils, “the most extraordinary and complex maneuvers were accomplished—spiral and circling turns being executed with an ease and grace almost beyond description, level travel accomplished with the wind and against it, figure-eight evolutions performed without difficulty, and hair-raising dives were terminated by abrupt checking of the movement by changing the angles of the wing surfaces. At times the speed, as estimated by eye-witnesses, was over sixty-eight miles an hour, and yet after a flight of approximately eight miles in twenty minutes the machine was brought to rest upon a previously designated spot, three-quarters of a mile from where the balloon had been released, so lightly that the aviator was not even jarred, despite the fact that he was compelled to land on his feet, not on a special alighting gear.” This daring performance amazed the world, and most of all, the specialists who all along knew such a feat to be practicable. As a further description of Professor Montgomery’s wonderful experiments may interest the reader, the following account, written by himself, is inserted from _Aëronautics_ for January, 1909: “When I commenced practical demonstration in my work with aëroplanes I had before me three points. First, equilibrium; second, complete control; and third, long continued or soaring flight. In starting I constructed and tested three sets of models, each in advance of the other in regard to the continuance of their soaring powers, but all equally perfect as to equilibrium and control. These models were tested by dropping them from a cable stretched between two mountain tops, with various loads, adjustments and positions. And it made no difference whether the models were dropped upside down or in any other conceivable position, they always found their equilibrium immediately and glided safely to earth.