Since the report which I laid before the last meeting of the Permanent Council at, St. Petersbourg, the work of the International Commission for Scientific Aëronautics has been continued on a more extended scale.

In this paper I propose to speak principally of the work of the Commission.

But it will be impossible for me to avoid speaking also of the work carried on by our members outside the direct work of the Commission, and I hope at some future time they will themselves communicate detailed results of these their independent investigations.

So far, the Commission has met twice, and has shaped its work on the advantageous base of these direct interchanges of thought.

From the very beginning of aëronautics difficulty was experienced in obtaining an envelope sufficiently impervious to gas to prevent excessive leakage, and yet not so heavy as to diminish unduly the ascensional power of the balloon. The first balloon, constructed by the brothers Montgolfier in 1783, was made of cotton fabric lined with paper and sewn on to a network of string. Faujas de Saint-Fond, who published a description of the experiment the same year, says that the gas escaped rapidly. Etiemne Montgolfier corroborates this, attributing the escape chiefly to the needle-holes in the envelope. Had the balloon not been of large size, 35 feet high and containing 22,000 cubic feet of air, it would probably have descended before the lapse of the ten minutes that the experiment lasted.

I have made many kites subsequently, and of many different forms, but always came back to that represented in the photographs before the meeting. It resembles in some particulars that of Mr. Cody, though I had made it long before I had seen or heard of Mr. Cody's kite. The essential difference is in the wings, where I do away with the eccentric protuberances which he favours. One particular feature I would point out is my employment of steel springs to fly the kite from at the kite-end of the connections. Mr. Cody employs all his springs at the winder end, but I find the double use of springs renders the flight of the kite infinitely more steady.

No one can reasonably deny that panoramic views taken from a moderate height give the best idea of the general features of a town or other locality. When we visit a new district we naturally mount a prominent hill or other point of vantage, and so obtain an impression of the surroundings; and the photographer takes his camera as high as he can to enable the lens to receive the view. Far more extended views are enjoyed by those who indulge in balloon ascents, and photographs taken from the cars of balloons are occasionally secured, and give those who stay at home some idea of the ground as seen by the aëronaut.

By the courtesy of Mr. S. F. Cody, we are enabled to reproduce some illustrations of his man-lifting kites which have not only aroused public attention, but that of the Admiralty and War Office. Mr. Cody may certainly be congratulated on the success that has so far attended his experiments in man-lifting with his winged-box kites. The trials with his system, both on the ironclads placed at his disposal by the Admiralty and at Aldershot, seem to promise that at no very distant future the captive observation balloon, limited in its use to fairly calm weather, will be efficiently supplemented on windy days by the observation kite. In a well-illustrated pamphlet on the subject which Mr. Cody has recently circulated, he thus describes his method of man-lifting.