M.
Berget says: "The inventor, the incontestable forerunner of aviation,
was an Englishman, Sir George Cayley, and it was in 1809 that he
described his project in detail in Nicholson's Journal.... His idea
embodied 'everything'--the wings forming an oblique sail, the empennage,
the spindle forms to diminish resistance, the screw-propeller, the
'explosion' motor,... he even described a means of securing automatic
stability. Is not all that marvellous, and does it not constitute a
complete specification for everything in aviation?

"Thus it is necessary to inscribe the name of Sir George Cayley in
letters of gold, in the first page of the aeroplane's history. Besides,
the learned Englishman did not confine himself to 'drawing-paper':
he built the first apparatus (without a motor) which gave him results
highly promising. Then he built a second machine, this time with a
motor, but unfortunately during the trials it was smashed to pieces."

But were these ideas of any practical value? How is it that he did not
succeed in flying, if he had most of the component parts of an aeroplane
as we know it to-day?

The answer to the second question is that Sir George did not fly, simply
because there was no light petrol motor in existence; the crude motors
in use were far too heavy, in proportion to the power developed, for
service in a flying machine. It was recognized, not only by Sir George,
but by many other English engineers in the first half of the nineteenth
century, that as soon as a sufficiently powerful and light engine did
appear, then half the battle of the conquest of the air would be won.

But his prophetic voice was of the utmost assistance to such inventors
as Santos Dumont, the Wright brothers, M. Bleriot, and others now
world-famed. It is quite safe to assume that they gave serious attention
to the views held by Sir George, which were given to the world at
large in a number of highly-interesting lectures and magazine articles.
"Ideas" are the very foundation-stones of invention--if we may be
allowed the figure of speech--and Englishmen are proud, and rightly
proud, to number within their ranks the original inventor of the
heavier-than-air machine.

CHAPTER XVI. The "Human Birds"

For many years after the publication of Sir George Cayley's articles
and lectures on aviation very little was done in the way of aerial
experiments. True, about midway through the nineteenth century two
clever engineers, Henson and