The machine used by Mr. Hamilton is a Curtiss bi-plane, which in most respects follows closely the model of the original Wright aeroplane, but in which the function of the warping wings is fulfilled by two small wings, or ailerons, adjusted at each side between the larger planes. These ailerons, being deflected in opposite directions simultaneously, meet any tendency of the machine to tip unduly. Whether or not this method of maintaining lateral stability is the same in principle as the Wright method of warping the large planes themselves, is a question at issue between the inventors. From the purely scientific standpoint it would seem that one method is merely a modification of the other, which, however ingenious in its application, introduces no new principle. On the same day on which Mr. Hamilton's inter-urban flight took place, a new record for altitude was made at Indianapolis by Mr. W. H. Brookins, a pupil of the Wrights, who rose in the Wright bi-plane to a height of 4,384 feet. The height was calculated by President Lambert of the St. Louis Aero Club, with the aid of a sextant. Earlier in the same day Mr. Brookins had risen about 2,000 feet. It becomes increasingly difficult for an aeroplane to rise to great heights owing to rarefaction of the upper atmosphere, but the flights of Paulhan and Brookins, as well as various unmeasured altitudes attained in cross-country flights, show that the aeroplane as at present equipped may be depended upon to rise well toward the mile limit. These are but a few of the interesting flights made within a brief period after the Wright brothers' first successful demonstrations. The number of the aviators who so quickly entered the field, and the prominence given by the press to such feats as those of Blériot, Paulhan, and Curtiss, have tended to distract attention from the original inventors, and to produce some confusion in the popular mind as to the exact share the various aviators have taken in the conquest of the air. The facts, however, are quite clear and unequivocal. At the time when the Wright brothers made their first successful flights, comparatively few people in the world believed that anyone would ever be able to propel himself through the air with safety or certainty in a heavier-than-air apparatus. The Wright brothers solved the problem after years of patient effort, and solved it effectively and conclusively. They profited of course by the efforts of predecessors, but they were the inventors of the airship in a far fuller sense than, for example, Fulton was the inventor of the steamboat, or Stephenson of the locomotive, or Morse of the telegraph. To their success, and to that alone, must be ascribed the fact that many scores of men in various parts of the world are now able to fly in aeroplanes. Slight modifications of type mark various of these aeroplanes, but no radical departure in principle. [Illustration: Mr. Wilbur Wright flying over New York Harbor, October 4, 1909.]