stage between building a model and a full-sized, motor-driven machine: some step, in a word, by which a man might learn, without too great a risk of death, to balance himself when in the air. While Sir Hiram Maxim in England was devoting time and money to the quest, there was another skilled engineer, a Frenchman, who was working at the problem, and also by means of large machines. This was Clement Ader, one of the European pioneers of the telephone, and he experimented for many years. One of his first machines had wings like those of a bird, and these the would-be flier was to operate by his own muscular power. But this failed, seeing that men are not provided with sufficient power, by their unaided efforts, to wing their way through the air in a flapping flight. As Giovanni Borelli, a seventeenth century writer, quaintly puts it: “It is impossible that men should be able to fly craftily by their own strength.” [Illustration: PLATE I.--THE LANGLEY MACHINE. This craft, a double monoplane, was launched from a platform over the river Potomac, loaded with a weight equivalent to that of a man. The trials were unsuccessful; but recently--after a lapse of many years--the Langley machine has been tested again, and has proved its ability to fly.] Ader next turned to steam-driven craft, and built a series of queer, bat-like machines, which he called “Avions,” one of which is illustrated in Fig. 16. Its wings were built up lightly and with great strength by means of hollow wooden spars, and had a span of 54 feet, being deeply arched. The whole machine weighed 1100 lbs., and was thus far smaller and lighter than Maxim’s mighty craft. To propel it, Ader used a couple of horizontal, compound steam engines, which gave 20 h.p. each and drew the machine through the air by means of two 4-bladed screws. The craft was controlled by altering the inclination of its wings, and also by a rudder, the pilot sitting in a carriage below the planes. In 1890, after its inventor had spent a large sum of money, the machine--which, unlike those of Phillips and Maxim, ran upon wheels and was free to rise--did actually make a flight, or rather a leap into the air, covering a distance of about fifty yards. But then, on coming into contact with the ground again, it was wrecked. Ader’s experiments were regarded by the French Government as being so important that he received a grant equalling £20,000 to assist him in continuing his tests; and this goes to show how, even from the first, the French nation was--by reason of its enthusiasm and imagination--able to appreciate what its inventors were striving to attain, and eager to encourage them in their quest. For just an opposite reason--because, that is to say, it had not this imagination nor intuition--England neglected her experimenters, or merely regarded their efforts with an amused tolerance, as though they were children playing with toys. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--Ader’s “Avion.”]