Of the work of both there has been one underlying characteristic--simplicity. The former has produced a machine stripped indeed of encumbering complexities, in which the restriction of accessories to what is absolutely necessary is carried to a fine art; the latter with that very machine has performed experiments in the air that the most sanguine enthusiast of a few years back would have deemed far beyond the region of the possible. In his graceful air diving, looping the loop, and flying upside down, he gave the world a great object-lesson of the materiality of air. He showed the air can give the aviator as much support as the water can to a fancy swimmer. He showed that if the aëroplane is an unstable thing, the human brain can supply the stability; that in human flight, like the bird and its wings, the machine and individual can be in closest touch. No one has stripped the air of its terrors as has M. Pégoud. In the yielding air there is indeed safety! It is the ground the aviator has to fear! I have spoken of the simplicity of the Blériot monoplane. In the machine with which M. Blériot flew over the Channel in 1909, stretched like the wings of a bird on either side of a tubular wooden frame partly covered with canvas and tapering to the rear, are placed the two supporting planes, rounded at the ends. At the front end is placed the motor (in the original type a three-cylindered engine, now replaced by the Gnome motor), geared direct to a 6 feet 6 inches wooden propeller, and on a level with the rear end of the planes. Immediately behind the engine is the petrol tank, and behind that the aviator’s seat. Near the rear end of the frame and underneath it is the fixed tail, with two movable elevating tips. How simple is the working of this monoplane! Moving a lever backwards and forwards actuates the tips of the fixed tail at the back of the machine, and causes it to rise or fall. Moving the same lever from side to side warps the rear surfaces of the supporting planes. The act of pushing from side to side a bar on which the aviator’s feet rest puts the rudder into action and steers the machine. The triumphs of the Blériot monoplane would fill many pages. It was the first machine to fly over an expanse of water--the Channel. Later, it carried M. Prior from London to Paris without a stop, traversing 250 miles in three hours 56 minutes, beating the performances of the fleetest express trains by three hours. If it no longer for the moment holds the record of height, which it has so often done, it carried M. Garros up to a height of 5,000 metres. When his engine broke down at that prodigious height, by its superb gliding powers it brought him safely to earth! It has flown over the Alpine peaks! It carried the first aëroplane post--1,750 letters and cards--from Hendon to Windsor in seventeen minutes! In 1911 Blériot No. XI. flew with ten persons on board.