e surfaces,
and fitted it with an eight-cylinder Antoinette motor driving a
two-bladed aluminium propeller, of which the blades were 6 feet only
from tip to tip. The total lift surface of 860 square feet was given
with a wing-span of a little under 40 feet, and the weight of the
complete machine was 353 lbs., of which the engine weighed 158 lbs.
In July of 1906 Santos-Dumont flew a distance of a few yards in this
machine, but damaged it in striking the ground; on October 23rd of the
same year he made a flight of nearly 200 feet--which might have been
longer, but that he feared a crowd in front of the aeroplane and cut
off his ignition. This may be regarded as the first effective flight in
Europe, and by it Santos-Dumont takes his place as one of the chief--if
not the chief--of the pioneers of the first years of practical flight,
so far as Europe is concerned.

Meanwhile, the Voisin Brothers, who in 1904 made cellular kites for
Archdeacon to test by towing on the Seine from a motor launch, obtained
data for the construction of the aeroplane which Delagrange and Henry
Farman were to use later. The Voisin was a biplane, constructed with
due regard to the designs of Langley, Lilienthal, and other earlier
experimenters--both the Voisins and M. Colliex, their engineer, studied
Lilienthal pretty exhaustively in getting out their design, though their
own researches were very thorough as well. The weight of this Voisin
biplane was about 1,450 lbs., and its maximum speed was some 38 to 40
miles per hour, the total supporting surface being about 535 square
feet. It differed from the Wright design in the possession of a
tail-piece, a characteristic which marked all the French school of early
design as in opposition to the American. The Wright machine got its
longitudinal stability by means of the main planes and the elevating
planes, while the Voisin type added a third factor of stability in its
sailplanes. Further, the Voisins fitted their biplane with a wheeled
undercarriage, while the Wright machine, being fitted only with runners,
demanded a launching rail for starting. Whether a machine should be
tailless or tailed was for some long time matter for acute controversy,
which in the end was settled by the fitting of a tail to the Wright
machines-France won the dispute by the concession.

Henry Farman, who began his flying career with a Voisin machine, evolved
from it the aeroplane which bore his name, following the main lines of