om it, and not responsive in feeling or
movement.

For the foregoing reasons success can never
be attained until some structural form is devised
which will consider the flying machine independently
of the prototypes pointed out as the correct
things to follow. It does not, necessarily, have to
be unlike the bird form, but we do know that the
present structures have been made and insisted
upon blindly, because of this wrong insistence on
forms.

STUDY OF BIRD FLIGHT USELESS.--The study of
the flight of birds has never been of any special
value to the art. Volumes have been written on
the subject. The Seventh Duke of Argyle, and
later, Pettigrew, an Englishman, contributed a
vast amount of written matter on the subject of
bird flight, in which it was sought to show that
soaring birds did not exert any power in flying.

Writers and experimenters do not agree on the
question of the propulsive power, or on the form
or shape of the wing which is most effective, or
in the matter of the relation of surface to weight,
nor do they agree in any particular as to the effect
and action of matter in the soaring principle.

Only a small percentage of flying creatures use
motionless wings as in soaring. By far, the
greater majority use beating wings, a method of
translation in air which has not met with success
in any attempts on the part of the inventor.

Nevertheless, experimenting has proceeded on
lines which seek to recognize nature's form only,
while avoiding the best known and most persistent
type.

SHAPE OF SUPPORTING SURFACES.--When we examine
the prevailing type of supporting surfaces
we cannot fail to be impressed with one feature,
namely, the determination to insist on a broad
spread of plane surface, in imitation of the bird
with outstretched wings.

THE TROUBLE ARISING FROM OUTSTRETCHED
WINGS.--This form of construction is what brings
all the troubles in its train. The literature on
aviation is full of arguments on this subject, all
declaring that a wide spread is essential, because,
--birds fly that way.

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