Cars and Framework 139 Some Details 139 Recent French Machines 141 Orville Wright at Fort Myer 143 The First Flight Across the Channel 144 Wright Motor 145 Voisin-Farman Biplane 147 The Champagne Grand Prize Flight 148 Farman's First Biplane 149 The "_June Bug_" 150 Curtiss Biplane 151 Curtiss' Hydro-Aeroplane at San Diego Bay 152 Flying Over the Water 153 Blériot-Voisin Cellular Biplane with Pontoons 154 Latham's "_Antoinette_" 155 James J. Ward at Lewiston Fair 156 Marcel Penot in the "_Mohawk_" 157 Santos-Dumont's "_Demoiselle_" 159 Blériot Monoplane 160 Latham's Fall into the Channel 161 De Lesseps Crossing the Channel 163 The Maxim Aeroplane 164 Langley's Aeroplane 165 Robart Monoplane 166 Vina Monoplane 167 Blanc Monoplane 170 Melvin Vaniman Triplane 171 Jean de Crawhez Triplane 171 A Triplane 172 Giraudon's Wheel Aeroplane 175 Bréguet Gyroplane (Helicopter) 177 Wellman's "_America_" 181 The German Emperor Watching the Progress of Aviation 189 Automatic Gun for Attacking Airships 193 Gun for Shooting at Aeroplanes 197 Santos-Dumont Circling the Eiffel Tower 199 Latham, Farman and Paulhan 202 FLYING MACHINES TODAY THE DELIGHTS AND DANGERS OF FLYING Few things have more charm for man than flight. The soaring of a bird is beautiful and the gliding of a yacht before the wind has something of the same beauty. The child's swing; the exercise of skating on good ice; a sixty-mile-an-hour spurt on a smooth road in a motor car; even the slightly passé bicycle: these things have all in their time appealed to us because they produce the illusion of flight--of progress through the intangible air with all but separation from the prosaic earth.