It is difficult to say how much aëronautical science owes to two illustrious names--Sir Hiram Maxim and the late Professor Langley. The two eminent men took up the subject of flight about the same time in the last decade of the last century, and applied to it all the scientific knowledge of the time. The flying machine had come to be associated in the public mind with foolhardiness and failure. In the discussion following Sir Hiram Maxim’s paper, “Experiments in Aëronautics,” read before the Society of Arts on November 28th, 1894, he said, “At the time I took up this subject it was almost considered a disgrace for anyone to think of it; it was quite out of the question practically.” But these two scientific men stepped into the breach, rescued aëronautics from a fallen position, and fired in its cause the enthusiasm of men of light and leading. Sir Hiram Maxim built the largest flying machine that had been constructed. It spread 4,000 square feet of supporting surface, and weighed 8,000 lb. The screw propellers were no less than 17 feet 11 inches in diameter, the width of the blade at the tip being 5 feet. The boiler was of 363 h.p. The machine ran on wheels on a railway line, and was restrained from premature flight by two wooden rails placed on each side above the wheels. On one occasion, however, the machine burst through the wooden rails and flew for 300 feet. In 1896 Langley’s tandem-surfaced model aërodrome had luck with the aërial currents, and flew for more than three-quarters of a mile over the Potomac River. This machine had 70 square feet supporting surface, weighed 72 lb., and had an engine of 1 h.p., weighing 7 lb. It is well known how, in later years, Langley exaggerated his model into a machine which carried a man, and how twice, when it was put to the test over water, at the very moment of being launched, it caught in the launching ways and was pulled into the water. It is interesting to note that the American aviator, Mr. Curtiss, has lately unearthed the Langley flying machine, and flown on it. Thus to Langley has come a posthumous aëronautical honour.