as fired
by the spectacle and probably having never heard of the punishment
that befell the Ancient Mariner, he shot the albatross. "I took the
wing," he wrote later, "and exposed it to the breeze, and lo, in
spite of me, it drew forward into the wind; notwithstanding my
resistance it tended to rise. Thus I had discovered the secret of
the bird. I comprehend the whole mystery of flight."

A trifle too sanguine was sailor Le Bris, but he had just the
qualities of imagination and confidence essential to one who sets
forth to conquer the air. Had he possessed the accurate mind, the
patience, and the pertinacity of the Wrights he might have beaten
them by half a century. As it was he accomplished a remarkable feat,
though it ended in somewhat laughable failure. He built an
artificial bird, on the general plan of his albatross. The wings
were not to flap, but their angles to the wind were controlled by a
system of levers controlled by Le Bris, who stood up in the basket
in the centre. To rise he required something like the flying start
which the airplanes of to-day get on their bicycle wheels before
leaving the ground. As Le Bris had no motor this method of
propulsion was denied him, so he loaded the apparatus in a cart, and
fastened it to the rail by a rope knotted in a slip knot which a
jerk from him would release. As they started men walked beside the
cart holding the wings, which extended for twenty-five feet on
either side. As the horses speeded up these assistants released
their hold. Feeling the car try to rise under his feet Le Bris cast
off the rope, tilted the front end of the machine, and to his joy
began to rise steadily into the air. The spectators below cheered
madly, but a note of alarm mingled with their cheers, and the
untried aviator noticed a strange and inexplicable jerking of his
machine. Peering down he discovered, to his amaze, a man kicking
and crying aloud in deadly fear. It was evident that the rope he had
detached from the cart had caught up the driver, who had thus
become, to his intense dismay, a partner in the inventor's triumph.
Indeed it is most possible that he contributed to that triumph for
the ease and steadiness with which the machine rose to a height
estimated at three hundred feet suggests that he may have furnished
needed ballast--acted in fact as the tail to the kite. Humanity
naturally impelled Le Bris to descend at once, which he did
skilfully without injuring his involuntary pass