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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2016
In my last communication to the Society it Was stated that I had means by which I could vibrate my thirty-five-foot expanse of wing machine, that if it did not go, “ I would try again.” Well, it didn't go. Now, some one may say, “ that was to be expected; ” however, we can say, in rebuttal, that if hope did not burn brightly in the average inventor's breast, or his energy would fag in the effort to produce in material form his conception, or the unsympathetic attitude of his too conservative, yet esteemed contemporaries would cause him to desist, we would have no improvements, and progress would cease, except, perhaps, in the old beaten paths. It is far easier and much more pleasant to record and report success than failure. It is said that success is often the result of failure, but in the pursuit of the ignis fatuus of aëronautics, failure has been broadly written across all effort to wrest from the air that necessary grip and traction which will give us suspension and propulsion as does a marine vessel in water or an automobile on land.