Probably the most successful attempt at propulsion by this method was that of a French locksmith named Besnier. Over two hundred years ago he made for himself a pair of light wooden paddles, with blades at either end, somewhat similar in shape to the double paddle of a canoe. These he placed over his shoulders, his feet being attached by ropes to the hindmost paddles. Jumping off from some high place in the face of a stiff breeze, he violently worked his arms and legs, so that the paddles beat the air and gave him support. It is said that Besnier became so expert in the management of his simple apparatus that he was able to raise himself from the ground, and skim lightly over fields and rivers for a considerable distance. Now it has been shown that the enormous extent of wing required to support a man of average weight would be much too large to be flapped by man's arm muscles. But in this, as with everything else, we have succeeded in harnessing the forces of nature into our service as tools and machinery. And is not this, after all, one of the chief, distinctions between man and the lower orders of creation? The latter fulfil most of their bodily requirements by muscular effort. If a horse wants to get from one place to another it walks; man can go on wheels. None of the lower animals makes a single tool to assist it in the various means of sustaining life; but man puts on his "thinking-cap", and invents useful machines and tools to enable him to assist or dispense with muscular movement. Thus we find that in aviation man has designed the propeller, which, by its rapid revolutions derived from the motive power of the aerial engine, cuts a spiral pathway through the air and drives the light craft rapidly forward. The chief use of the planes is for support to the machine, and the chief duty of the pilot is to balance and steer the craft by the manipulation of the rudder, elevation and warping controls. CHAPTER XVIII. A Great British Inventor of Aeroplanes Though, as we have seen, most of the early attempts at aerial navigation were made by foreign engineers, yet we are proud to number among the ranks of the early inventors of heavier-than-air machines Sir Hiram Maxim, who, though an American by birth, has spent most of his life in Britain and may therefore be called a British inventor. Perhaps to most of us this inventor's name is known more in connection with the famous "Maxim" gun, which he designed, and which was named after him. But as early as 1894, when the construction of aeroplanes was in a very backward state, Sir Hiram succeeded in making an interesting and ingenious aeroplane, which he proposed to drive by a particularly light steam-engine.