The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-12-04

member of her family, Miss Mary H
Krout was informed that Mr.. Wilbur
Wright had been presented to the
Queen of Italy after his recent success
in France, and had received very distin
guished honors at the Italian court. II
will be recalled that the Italian Prince:
of the reigning house are eminently sci
entifc men, the Duke of Abruzzi being
an intrepid explorer.
1t was also stated in the same letter
that the city of Dayton win give the
now famous brothers grand reception
upon their return to Dayton, which, by
the way, is not their native town, both
brothers having been born in Indiana.
As was mentioned some time ago in
the Advertiser, the Wright brothers
have not had the usual experience of in
ventOrs in eontending with poverty,
their father being a man of abundant
means, and they themselves practical
business men, as has been shown, not
withstanding their absorbing scientific
study.
In The World S Work for October,
Frederick Todd has given a most in
telligent and appreciative account of
their experiments, exploding a good
many of the silly stories that have been
circulated about the two inventors and
their work. He said:
Gone morning in the summer push
ed open the front door of the little two
story store building on West Third
street and came upon big structure of
white canvas, aluminium, painted wood,
and thick, heavy wires-part of the
aeroplane of the Messrs. Wright. There
had been much said to me about the Sc
crecy of the two young men in Dayton;
but nobody was in sight. Stepping
noisily about did not bring anybody. So
L went to a side door, from which |
saw an elderly gentleman go, and there |
met Mr.. Orville Wright, who had in
1tCA AuC ny ACblCA W COlllC
after six and talk about flying, his time
being taken up with work Un thU sUt-
eminent flying machine during work
hours. / told him that l had called just
for a moment to make an engagement.
"All right" he said, "come up to
ny house at seven.
"And then he took me first to look
1T the machine 1 had seen, and after
ward. in the little office upstairs, talked
'or three hours about experiments on
aerodynamics.
81 had gone to Dayton with the idea
hat Mr.. Wright and his brother were
,wo skilful mechanics, who had got
title skilful scientific information from
Mr. Chanute, and had then Numbered
ahead to kind of success by grace of
expertness got in manufac-
uring bicycles. But Mr.. Wright told
ne about the painstaking and highly
experiments his brother and
le conducted, He showed me
ome of the apparatus-little curved
pieces of brass of different sizes and
they put into delicate
balance in long tube through which
teady currents of air are blown, chang
ng angles and speeds of air, noting
down and then studying the
mass of figures. They perfected their
apparatus till it gave them identical
esults as often as they repeated an ex-
Ga thing that pioneer expert 1
lenters did not succeed in doing), and
earned so much from comparing figures
hat they can now plot the shape of
urface to do something they want and, ]
fter testing it, find that it does ex-
city what they designed. B
Many of the European scientists
Tho have written thick books about !
ow air acts, have reasoned it all out I
a advance with equations containing
lenty of Greek letters, assuming that
he air acts just as the fluid water does.
he unassuming brothers in Dayton {
rst found out how the air really acts
Y experimental apparatus. They have
ltisfed themselves that air behaves '
from water, having no CO.
esion. Their actual tests with objects
ave convinced them of some astonish- z
IT