The aeroplane is here shown at rest, facing the right. This is the original type of bi-plane flying machines, of which all the others are only modifications. The starting-rail along which the machine glides while acquiring momentum is seen at the right; the rope connecting it with the starting derrick, at the left. The sledge-like runners, intended to break the shock of alighting, are plainly shown. The parallel planes of canvas at the right are horizontal rudders to direct the machine upward or downward. The vertical planes at the left are active rudders to direct the machine laterally. The two paddle-like structures at the back of the machine are the wooden propellers, actuated (at a rate of from 1000 to 1400 revolutions per minute) by an oil motor. With a machine of this type the Wright brothers, of Dayton, Ohio, were the first to demonstrate the feasibility of aerial navigation with a heavier-than-air machine; and world-famous flights were made by Mr. Orville Wright at Washington and by Mr. Wilbur Wright in France in the summer of 1908.] But even as they labored and promulgated these conclusions, two unknown men in a little Ohio town, discarding all accepted theoretical calculations, and combining with their newly created tables of figures a rare quality of practical application and unswerving courage, had accomplished the impossible. Wilbur and Orville Wright--two names that must always be linked with those of Fulton and Stephenson, only possibly on a higher plane as conquerors of a more subtle element--were at that very time making flights in all directions at will through the air in their practical flying-machine. While others caviled and doubted, these two modest inventors worked and accomplished; until presently they were able to put in evidence a mechanism that may perhaps without exaggeration be regarded as the harbinger of a new era of civilization. The interest of these two brothers in the fascinating field of air navigation was first excited when, as boys, their father, a clergyman, brought home for their amusement the little toy known to scientists as a "hélicoptère," which, actuated by twisted rubbers that drive tiny paper screws in opposite directions, actually rises and flutters through the air. "A toy so delicate lasted only a short time in the hands of small boys, but its memory was abiding" the inventors themselves have tersely said. So abiding, indeed, that a few years later they began making similar "bats," as they had dubbed the machines.