thstanding his great genius, he never succeeded.'

This reads circumstantially enough, but it may be borne in mind that the
date of writing is more than half a century later than the time of the
alleged achievement--the story had had time to round itself out. Danti,
however, is mentioned by a number of writers, one of whom states that
the failure of his experiment was due to the prayers of some individual
of a conservative turn of mind, who prayed so vigorously that Danti fell
appropriately enough on a church and injured himself to such an extent
as to put an end to his flying career. That Danti experimented, there
is little doubt, in view of the volume of evidence on the point, but the
darkness of the Middle Ages hides the real truth as to the results of
his experiments. If he had actually flown over Thrasimene, as alleged,
then in all probability both Napoleon and Wellington would have had air
scouts at Waterloo.

Danti's story may be taken as fact or left as fable, and with it the
period of legend or vague statement may be said to end--the rest is
history, both of genuine experimenters and of charlatans. Such instances
of legend as are given here are not a tithe of the whole, but there is
sufficient in the actual history of flight to bar out more than this
brief mention of the legends, which, on the whole, go farther to prove
man's desire to fly than his study and endeavour to solve the problems
of the air.

II. EARLY EXPERIMENTS

So far, the stories of the development of flight are either legendary
or of more or less doubtful authenticity, even including that of Danti,
who, although a man of remarkable attainments in more directions
than that of attempted flight, suffers--so far as reputation is
concerned--from the inexactitudes of his chroniclers; he may have soared
over Thrasimene, as stated, or a mere hop with an ineffectual glider may
have grown with the years to a legend of gliding flight. So far, too,
there is no evidence of the study that the conquest of the air demanded;
such men as made experiments either launched themselves in the air from
some height with made-up wings or other apparatus, and paid the penalty,
or else constructed some form of machine which would not leave the
earth, and then gave up. Each man followed his own way, and there was no
attempt--without the printing press and the dissemination of knowledge
there was little possibility of attempt--on the part of any one to
benefit by t