corn. The season's
work is summarized by Mr. Orville Wright in a letter dated the 17th of
November 1905, and communicated to the Aeronautical Society of Great
Britain:

'Up to September 6 we had the machine on but eight different days,
testing a number of changes which we had made since 1904.... During the
month of September we gradually improved in our practice, and on the
26th made a flight of a little over eleven miles. On the 30th we
increased this to twelve and one-fifth miles, on October 3 to fifteen
and one-third miles, on October 4 to twenty and three-fourth miles, and
on the 5th to twenty-four and one-fourth miles. All of these flights
were made at about thirty-eight miles an hour, the flight of the 5th
occupying thirty minutes three seconds.... We had intended to place the
record above the hour, but the attention these flights were beginning to
attract compelled us suddenly to discontinue our experiments in order
to prevent the construction of the machine from becoming public.

'The machine passed through all of these flights without the slightest
damage. In each of these flights we returned frequently to the
starting-point, passing high over the heads of the spectators.'

A young druggist called Foust, a friend of the Wrights, was present at
the flight of the 5th of October. He was told not to divulge what he had
seen, but his enthusiasm would not be restrained, and he talked to such
effect that next day the field was crowded with sightseers and the
fences were lined with photographers. Very reluctantly the brothers
ended their work for the year. They took apart their flyer, and brought
it back to the city.

From this time on, for a period of almost three years, the brothers
disappear from view. The secrets which it had cost them so much time and
effort to discover might, by a single photograph, be made into public
property. They were bound to do what they could to assert their claim to
their own invention. Their first task was to secure patent rights in
their machine; and, after that, to negotiate with the American, French,
and British Governments for its purchase. The bringer of so great a gift
as flight is worthy of his reward; but the attitude of the brothers to
their hard-won possession was not selfish or commercial. They thought
more of their responsibilities than of their profits; and in attempting
to dispose of their machine they handled the matter as if it were a
public trust. These years were fu