"The Curtiss circled three-quarters of the field and then climbed rapidly until it was three hundred or four hundred feet above the south end of the track. Ovington, who had also got under way with a second bag of mail in his monoplane, shot up into the same acre of sky occupied by Captain Beck and Mr. Hitchcock and shot eastward as a track finder for Captain Beck's machine. "The field could see the two machines almost all the time during the cross-country flight. The way the biplane with a passenger pegged along just behind the monoplane with only a pilot aboard was a caution. Over a big white circle painted on the Mineola real estate, Ovington from his monoplane and the Postmaster-General from Captain Beck's machine, plumped down to Mineola the two pouches and hit within the circle in each case. "The biplane teetered slightly as the mail bag was released and then the two machines made a circle and spun back to where the crowd stood on tiptoe peering over fences at Nassau Boulevard. "'I was up once before,' the Postmaster-General said after he had shaken hands all around upon his return to earth.' That was at Baltimore with Count de Lesseps in his Bleriot. The biplane to-day I found was much steadier. "'Fly again? I hope so, because I like the experience very much. My trip to-day was especially enjoyable because at Baltimore I could see very little of the ground below, owing to the closed-in construction of a monoplane. To-day from the biplane all this end of Long Island was stretched out to be looked at. [Illustration: CARRYING THE MAIL–NASSAU BOULEVARD, 1911] Right to left: Attorney-general Wickersham, Captain Paul Beck, Postmaster-General Hitchcock, with mail-bag. [Illustration: STUDENTS OF AERIAL WARFARE] Beck, St,. Henry, and Curtiss studying a flight by Kelley Military pupils. Left to right: McClaskey, Curtiss, Beck, Towers, Ellyson "'Yes, air-routes are all right for practical mail-carrying,' Mr. Hitchcock continued, in answer to a question.'I mean,' he smiled,'the air is all right, but the vehicles must continue toward perfection. But even with the aeroplane as it is now it would be very useful to us, particularly in some parts of the country. PRACTICAL VALUE TO-DAY FOR MAIL-CARRYING "'Take along the Colorado River in the canon district of Yuma, for instance, or in parts of Alaska. Along the Colorado there are places where detours of fifty miles out of the way are made in mail routes to get to a bridge. An aeroplane could hop right across the river. "'The expensiveness of maintaining an aeroplane service is an obstacle, but that will diminish. I would like to see the Post Office Department do something definite in this direction for the good effect it would have in stimulating the development of the machine. Fliers at present have many lean months between the meets.'"