The San Francisco call., 1905-05-07

thing else. 1t is true that all my life
the thought of flying has held a fas-
cination for me- the problem Of aerial
navigation has interested me beyond
everything else. and 1 have worked at
# unremittingly-bu not at that alone.
/ have been interested in mechanics,
in electricity. in astronomy
And in astronomy alone Professor
Montgomery's researches and discover
ies and deductions. his contribution to
the sum of knowledge would make OF
him a noted man in the scientific
world If he had not the other day
turned loose a flying machine that
really flies and thus overshadowed all
other interests IN him.
II have always been interested In all
the phenomena of nature. / think that
is my natural bent of mind NV earli-
est recollection-and it is such an early
recollection that I'm half afraid to tell
you It is of the time when ! was only
three and a half years old-is OF
the curiosity excited by this in
terest. The circumstance is as clear
in my mind as though 1t were
an occurrence of yesterday. My
father had taken me with him on a
drive and left me sitting in the rig
had .occasioned the drive. While l was
sitting there L observed for the first
time the changing shadows on the sur
face cf the earth. When he came back
1 asked him what made them. Very
kindly and simply he tried to make
clear 10 my mind the rotation of the
earth and his explanation suggested a
regularity of movement that must. OF
course, produce regularity of effect
] observed variation irregularity, and
for years this phenomenon troubled
my mind. | was ashamed to tell that
I did not understand, and ask again
for the fuller explanation he would SO
gladly have given me-"
So the little puzzled child put the
question straight 10 nature.
And as the child did, so has the man
done-and nature. it seems. has taken
him into her confidence. has impaired
to him her secrets, coyertIy, indirectly
and again with free and open hand
When Telegraph az --.:e and Forti-
eth street in Oakland Was still part of
ranch this flying machine that really
flies was born in the mind of a boy
playing in the ranch barnyard: not
fullwinged, of course; but in the tor
menting form of question.
When 1 was boy of sixteen and We
were living on our ranch at what is
now Telegraph avenue and Fortieth
street in Oakland, l was playing in
the barnyard. as boys will, shying a
piece of tin in the air. Something in
apparently resting at different points
in the air, arrested my attention. 1t
struck me as weird. Why didn't 1T
come straight down? Why did it
curve and turn and settle-seemingly
suspended in midair for an instant?
1t struck me as weird-that is the
only word that conveys the impress
sion it made on my mind, and the i'm
preston remained because it puzzled
me.
1T is with this incident that 1 con-
meet my first ideas of aerial naviga-
ton that were more than merely WIS.,
ionary and esthetic, more than mere
ly the vague desire to fly
The same boy on the same Oakland
ranch chasing his grandmothers
geese into flying from one end of the
ranch to the other, much to the
amazement of the geese and the mys-
tification of the good grandmother, is
another picture in the evolution of
the flying machine that really flies.
"It always seemed to me that the
secret of aerial navigation lay in the
discovery OF the principle of a birds
hight-that the successful airship
would not be modelled on the balloon
nor dependent on its buoyancy. The
flying of wild geese interested me in
consequence and as 1 couldn't get near