The race began at Issy, near Paris, on August 7th, with eight aviators on the wing—Le Blanc, Aubrun, Leganeaux, Mamet, Lindpainter, Weyman. It terminated August 17th, headed by Alfred Le Blanc on his Blériot, and followed by Emile Aubrun on a Blériot, then by Weyman on a Farman, all three driven by Gnome engines actuating Chauvière propellers. Le Blanc completed the tour of six stages, covering an air-line distance of 488 miles, in 12 hours’ effective flying, or at the average rate of 40.6 miles per hour. This long tour on schedule time over a rough and varied country in face of fog, wind and rain, was a most severe trial of the prowess and endurance of the brave pilots who had the hardiness and pertinacity to complete the voyage. Needless to add that it created unbounded enthusiasm among millions of people who witnessed the event, or read of it, and that the clocklike precision of the “grand raid” inspired new confidence in the practicability of the aëroplane. A particularly impressive feature of the event was that many of its participants, the aviators, government officers, and members of the controlling committee, assembled at Issy and other posts of duty, not by rail, but by aëroplane, sailing across country from many directions and from great distances. This matter-of-fact procedure led many persons to believe that the period of mere demonstrations had approached its close, and that the epoch of practical utility was at hand; that after marveling so much at the aëroplane, with mingled faith and skepticism, people would next calmly turn it to practical use. Though the progress in designing and constructing aëroplanes in 1910 did not keep pace with the wonderful advance in new records, still the inventors and manufacturers continued industriously to perfect the details of their best standard machines, and in a few instances to make radical innovations. The perfection in details of construction manifested itself in the public performance of aëroplanes, particularly in their greater reliability and their increased capabilities. The radical innovations were mainly experimental, and not generally exhibited, though none the less important for all that. Chief of these perhaps were the hydro-aëroplane developments of Fabre in France, and of Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss in America, which enabled the aviator to launch into the air directly from the water and to alight safely on the water, thus virtually adding a new and very important domain to the empire of dynamic flight.