“This line of action caused a good deal of trouble with aëronauts or riders who had unbounded confidence and wanted to make long flights after the first few trials, but I found it necessary as they seemed slow in comprehending the important elements and were too willing to take risks. To give them the full knowledge in these matters I was formulating plans for a large starting station on the Mount Hamilton Range from which I could launch an aëroplane capable of carrying two, one of my aëronauts and myself, so I could teach him by demonstration. But the disasters consequent on the great earthquake, completely stopped all my work on these lines. The flights that were given were only the first of the series with aëroplanes patterned after the first model. There were no aëroplanes constructed according to the two other models, as I had not given the full demonstration of the workings of the first, though some remarkable and startling work was done. On one occasion, Maloney in trying to make a very short turn during rapid flight pressed very hard on the stirrup which gives a screw shape to the wings and made a side somersault. The course of the machine was very much like one turn of a corkscrew. After this movement, the machine continued on its regular course. And afterwards Wilkie, not to be outdone by Maloney, told his friends he would do the same, and in a subsequent flight, made two side somersaults, one in one direction and the other in an opposite, then made a deep dive and a long glide, and when about three hundred feet in the air, brought the aëroplane to a sudden stop and settled to the earth. After these antics, I decreased the extent of the possible change in the form of wing surface so as to allow only straight sailing or only long curves in turning. “During my work I had a few carping critics that I silenced by this standing offer: If they would deposit a thousand dollars I would cover it on this proposition. I would fasten a 150-pound sack of sand in the rider’s seat, make the necessary adjustments, and send up an aëroplane upside down with a balloon, the aëroplane to be liberated by a time fuse. If the aëroplane did not immediately right itself, make a flight, and come safely to the ground, the money was theirs.