f a few seconds
by one of their machines weighing 750 pounds was made in 1903. Two years
afterward a flight of 24 miles was made at the rate of 38 miles an hour.
Other successful experiments followed, and the claim of the Wrights to
be considered the inventors of the first successful man-carrying flying
machine was established. French inventors at about the same time were
carrying on successful experiments with machines similarly constructed.
September 16, 1908, Wilbur Wright, at Le Mans, France, demonstrated that
his machine could remain in the air for over an hour and at the same
time fly across country at a high speed. In that year, also, Orville
Wright, in a government test at Fort Myer, Virginia, not only made
flights lasting over an hour, but carried a companion with him. During
July, 1909, a French aviator, Bleriot, flew across the English Channel,
a distance of 32 miles. That year, also, Orville Wright ascended to the
height of 1,600 feet; with a passenger, made a record flight of 1 hour,
12 minutes and 36 seconds; and flew across country with a companion for
10 miles at the rate of 42 miles an hour. Thus it was shown that a
machine had at last been constructed which would not only fly, but would
remain in the air at the will of its pilot and subject to his guidance.

[Illustration: Automobile and airplane racing.]
From a photograph by H. H. Morris.
Charles K. Hamilton racing an automobile on the beach at Galveston, Texas.

[Illustration]
Photograph by Brown Bros., N.Y.
Wilbur and Orville Wright, and the late King Edward of England.

[1911]

In the aviation meet at Los Angeles, January 10, 1910, Louis Paulhan, a
Frenchman, established the record of 4,000 feet for height and Glenn H.
Curtiss with a passenger set a new world's record of 55 miles.

Shortly afterward Curtiss demonstrated for the first time that it was
possible for an aeroplane, especially constructed, to rise from the
surface of water, make a flight in the air, return to the
starting-point, and again alight on the water.

The great possibilities as well as the dangers connected with aviation
were brought out in the meet at Chicago during August, 1911, where two
aviators lost their lives. C. P. Rodgers, in a Wright machine, remained
in the air twenty-six and one-half hours out of the possible thirty-one
and one-half hours. Lincoln Beachey set a new world's record by
ascending 11,642 feet. This record was again surpassed within a month by