After writing his reply, Dosher handed Wilbur Wright’s letter to a neighbor, William J. Tate, with the request that he also make a reply. “Bill” Tate (later known as Captain Tate) was probably the best-educated man in that locality. He lived about a mile inland from the weather station, in the hamlet or settlement of Kitty Hawk, where he had formerly been the postmaster. For all practical purposes he still was the postmaster, though the office was in his wife’s name. Endowed with a gift for expressing himself readily in either speech or writing, Tate did a creditable job when he wrote to Wilbur Wright on August 18. Not only did he tell about the suitability of the Kitty Hawk region, because of the prevailing high winds, for the kind of experiments Wilbur had mentioned, but he went into details about the treeless sand hills and the general terrain. And he said arrangements could undoubtedly be made for the Wrights to obtain board for as long as desired. The letters from Dosher and Tate--particularly the one from Tate--convinced the Wrights that Kitty Hawk was the place for their experiments. Almost immediately they decided they would go to Kitty Hawk as soon as they could build their glider. The work at Dayton, getting parts and material ready for the glider, required only a few weeks. Only the cutting and sewing of the cloth covering for the wings, the bending of the ash ribs into shape, and making the metal connections, took much time. The cost of the whole machine in actual money outlay was trifling, probably not more than $15. It was arranged that Orville should stay in Dayton, to look after the bicycle shop until Wilbur got settled at Kitty Hawk, and then join him there. Wilbur set out on a September day, taking with him parts of the glider and all material needed to assemble it except some spruce lumber he expected to obtain nearer his destination. The journey proved to be more of an undertaking than Wilbur expected. V GLIDING AT KITTY HAWK One must look at a map of North Carolina to get an idea of the isolation of the long strip of sandy beach that separates the Atlantic Ocean from Albemarle, Pamlico, and Roanoke Sounds. At the time the Wrights went there, no bridges connected this beach with any part of the North Carolina mainland or even with near-by Roanoke Island, seat of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Lost Colony.” At one point on the beach was the Kitty Hawk life-saving station, and alongside of it a government weather bureau. About a mile back from the ocean was the hamlet of Kitty Hawk which, though it had a post office, was little more than a settlement, with only about a score of dwelling houses, most of them as widely scattered as in an ordinary farming community. Four miles south was the Kill Devil life-saving station.