ly; they took the
wind almost instantly to such an extent that the horse, relieved of a
great part of the weight he had been drawing, turned his trot into a
gallop. Le Bris gave the jerk of the rope that should have unfastened
the slip knot, but a concealed nail on the cart caught the rope, so that
it failed to run. The lift of the machine was such, however, that it
relieved the horse of very nearly the weight of the cart and driver, as
well as that of Le Bris and his machine, and in the end the rails of the
cart gave way. Le Bris rose in the air, the machine maintaining perfect
balance and rising to a height of nearly 300 ft., the total length of
the glide being upwards of an eighth of a mile. But at the last moment
the rope which had originally fastened the machine to the cart got wound
round the driver's body, so that this unfortunate dangled in the air
under Le Bris and probably assisted in maintaining the balance of the
artificial albatross. Le Bris, congratulating himself on his success,
was prepared to enjoy just as long a time in the air as the pressure of
the wind would permit, but the howls of the unfortunate driver at the
end of the rope beneath him dispelled his dreams; by working his levers
he altered the angle of the front wing edges so skilfully as to make a
very successful landing indeed for the driver, who, entirely uninjured,
disentangled himself from the rope as soon as he touched the ground, and
ran off to retrieve his horse and cart.

Apparently his release made a difference in the centre of gravity, for
Le Bris could not manipulate his levers for further ascent; by skilful
manipulation he retarded the descent sufficiently to escape injury to
himself; the machine descended at an angle, so that one wing, striking
the ground in front of the other, received a certain amount of damage.

It may have been on account of the reluctance of this same or another
driver that Le Bris chose a different method of launching himself in
making a second experiment with his albatross. He chose the edge of a
quarry which had been excavated in a depression of the ground; here he
assembled his apparatus at the bottom of the quarry, and by means of a
rope was hoisted to a height of nearly 100 ft. from the quarry bottom,
this rope being attached to a mast which he had erected upon the edge
of the depression in which the quarry was situated. Thus hoisted, the
albatross was swung to face a strong breeze that blew inland, and