liabilities but think it graceful to assume the airs of a patron. After a few years, when aeroplane construction and design settled down into a regular industry, the glory of this primitive Arcadian community passed away, and its members were scattered far and wide. Brooklands became a place of business; in one row of sheds the Bristol Company, in another Messrs. Vickers, established schools where many distinguished pilots who served their country in the war learned to make their first flights. Before the war broke out the British branch of the Bleriot Company had also taken a number of sheds, and had transformed them into a regular aircraft factory; the Martin and Handasyde firm had adapted three or four sheds, and were building a couple of monoplanes for a transatlantic attempt by that brilliant flyer, the late Mr. Gustav Hamel. In June of 1914 he was drowned in flying the English Channel, and the firm suffered a severe set-back. Lastly, when the war came, the Brooklands aerodrome, with all its flyable machines, was taken over by the military authorities, and the days of ease and innocence were ended. A large Vickers factory was built, and turned out many machines for the Flying Corps; the Bleriot and the Martinsyde firms also continued their activities for a couple of years, and then moved, the one to Addlestone, the other to Woking. During the war Brooklands was used as a training station, a wireless experimental depot, and an acceptance park by the Royal Flying Corps, which permitted the use of it, for experimental flying, to the Vickers, Martinsyde, and Bleriot firms.