The earliest experiments in the construction of aeroplanes were, as we have seen, to a considerable extent made in France. The United States have also played an active part. Meanwhile England had not been idle. Mr. Henry Farman, the inventor of the Farman Biplane, was the first to apply the now famous Gnome motor, in which seven or more cylinders revolved. The influence of this motor in facilitating flight generally has been remarkable. The early forms of aeroplane engines had proved unreliable, owing to the great speed demanded. Indeed, it is said that if the aeroplanes of the great European War were flying over the enemy’s line with old-fashioned engines they would drop down into hostile hands as quickly as dying flies from the ceiling on the first winter day. Side by side with the efforts of Mr. Henry Farman in the construction of biplanes, M. Bleriot gave his attention to the construction of monoplanes. After attempts, which unfortunately brought disaster and disappointment, he produced a machine which astonished by its remarkable performances the whole aeronautical world. Simplicity was the keynote of the Bleriot monoplane. The machine in which M. Bleriot flew over the Channel in 1909 has been described by a well-known member of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain as ‘stretching like the wings of a bird on either side of a tubular wooden frame partly covered with canvas and tapering to the rear, with two supporting planes, rounded at the ends. At the front was placed the motor, geared direct to a 6 feet 6 inch wooden propeller, and on a level with the rear end of the planes. Immediately behind the engine was a petrol tank, and behind that the aviator’s seat. Near the end of the frame and beneath it was the fixed tail, with two moveable, elevating tips. The act of moving a lever backwards and forwards actuated the tips of the fixed tail at the back of the machine, and caused it to rise and fall. Moving the same lever from side to side warped the rear surfaces of the supporting planes. The act of pushing from side to side a bar on which the aviator’s feet rested put the rudder into action and steered the machine.’ Still fresh in the memory is the flight in which the Bleriot monoplane carried M. Prior from London to Paris, covering 250 miles in three hours and fifty-six minutes. Later, a Bleriot monoplane carried M. Garros up to a height of 5,000 metres. At this height the engine broke down, but in virtue of wonderful gliding powers the machine was landed safely. It was this same type of machine that flew over the Alpine peaks, and later carried the first aeroplane post, flying from Hendon to Windsor in seventeen minutes.