increased in strength
throughout the flight, this to such an extent as almost to turn the
machine round when he came over English soil. Profiting by Latham's
experience, Bleriot had fitted an inflated rubber cylinder a foot in
diameter by 5 feet in length along the middle of his fuselage, to render
floating a certainty in case he had to alight on the water.

Latham in his camp at Sangatte had been allowed to sleep through the
calm of the early morning through a mistake on the part of a friend, and
when his machine was turned out--in order that he might emulate Bleriot,
although he no longer hoped to make the first flight, it took so long
to get the machine ready and dragged up to its starting-point that there
was a 25 mile an hour wind by the time everything was in readiness.
Latham was anxious to make the start in spite of the wind, but the
Directors of the Antoinette Company refused permission. It was not until
two days later that the weather again became favourable, and then with a
fresh machine, since the one on which he made his first attempt had
been very badly damaged in being towed ashore, he made a circular trial
flight of about 5 miles. In landing from this, a side gust of wind drove
the nose of the machine against a small hillock, damaging both propeller
blades and chassis, and it was not until evening that the damage was
repaired.

French torpedo boats were set to mark the route, and Latham set out on
his second attempt at six o'clock. Flying at a height of 200 feet, he
headed over the torpedo boats for Dover and seemed certain of making the
English coast, but a mile and a half out from Dover his engine failed
him again, and he dropped to the water to be picked up by the steam
pinnace of an English warship and put aboard the French destroyer
Escopette.

There is little to choose between the two aviators for courage in
attempting what would have been considered a foolhardy feat a year or
two before. Bleriot's state, with an abscess in the burnt foot which had
to control the elevator of his machine, renders his success all the
more remarkable. His machine was exhibited in London for a time, and
was afterwards placed in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, while a
memorial in stone, copying his monoplane in form, was let into the turf
at the point where he landed.

The second Channel crossing was not made until 1910, a year of new
records. The altitude record had been lifted to over 10,000 feet, the
dura