Probably few readers realize the advance which has been made towards a practical solution of the problem of aviation within the last eight years. It is greater than all that was accomplished during the preceding two centuries. Not only has the subject been rescued from the contempt brought upon it by past failures and eccentric proposals, but very able men—Langley, Maxim, Pilcher, Hargrave, and Lilienthal—have shown by their experiments and writings that man may fairly hope eventually to fly through the air.

Hundreds of failures during the last 300 or 400 years have well shown what arrangements will not answer, but the labours of these latter experimenters now enable us to forecast that success is most probably to be won with aerocurves, driven by screws or flapping propellers, actuated by a steam or a petroleum engine.

What is the best course to be now followed to make still further advance? Most of the above experimenters seem to have proceeded upon the assumption that it is practicable to evolve a complete flying machine at one operation, and to apply propellers and motors from the first, before we are quite certain as to the stability in a wind.

In most circles, particularly amongst technical aeronauts, the opinion is widespread that the adherents of construction of aerostatical dirigible balloons are on a false track, and that their objects are fundamentally different from those who seek to solve the problem of flight by purely dynamical means. The great resistance of the air which the balloon has to overcome, and the unfavourableness of such a form of construction, is generally put forward as .an insurmountable obstacle.

The balloon, as all must allow, his already gained a recognized position, and has become useful for military and scientific purposes, whilst the dynamical flying machine has proved that, with such modern technical ingenuity of construction as has been created by Maxim, and is represented by the first flying machine to carry three persons, anything may be expected of it in the future.

This belief in the future of the dynamical aerial machine is shared rightly by all aeronauts, but the development of it can only proceed (in the opinion of all practical and experienced balloonists) through the aerostatical balloon. The latter is an inevitable step in the evolution of aerial navigation.

This question has been so much discussed within the last few years, and so many are daily observing and studying the flight of every specimen of bird, that it is somewhat astonishing to me I have not yet come across any mention of the method which to my mind accounts for all the wonderful, and, to other theories, apparently impossible results of the ways of an eagle in air. I should be very glad to hear what objections can be raised to my explanation of how soaring is accomplished by any or all of the numerous writers and thinkers whose marvellous mathematical calculations enable them to account for some of the manoeuvres of birds to their own satisfaction. I have not yet seen any description of a theory which claims to account for every movement of all birds, but it must be admitted if any theory falls short of that, it cannot be correct; whilst if it fulfils that condition it cannot be very far wrong.

Tuesday morning, October 12, 1897, opened out bright and clear at Eastbourne. At 6 a.m. no clouds obscured a perfectly blue sky, and a gentle breeze blew from the north-west. It was decided that the conditions were favourable for a balloon voyage to Prance. The grounds of Devonshire Park had been kindly placed at. our disposal by Mr. A. Standen Triggs, Managing Director. The balloon had been prepared for inflation overnight, and arrangements made with the Eastbourne Gas Company to be in readiness to turn on the gas if desired. This was done at 7 a.m., and the inflation proceeded satisfactorily until the balloon was full at 9 o'clock. The balloon had a cubic capacity of 35,000 ft., was nearly new, having previously ascended on six occasions only at the Crystal Palace, at Shrewsbury, and at Beading. These ascents had all seasoned the balloon, and a recent coat of varnish had rendered it gas-tight and in good condition.