Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-03-03

TEBRUARY % there was unveiled at
HeliopoliS a monument to- Louis
= Mouillard, erected by the Egyptian
section of the French League for Avia-
ton. It is a tribute to the man who. they
cav. was the real father of the science of
aviation.
AS a matter of fact, Louis Mouiliaro
never flew and never attempted to fly
save once. as boy. when he was caught
on the edge of cliff and soundly cuffed
by an irate old beadle. but it was he
who set forth in two volumes the prin-
c.ples of flight, which were put into prac-
tice later by the Wright brothers.
In 1.-The Empire of the Air" and Flight
with Fixed Wings MOuillard explained
to the world, which paid little heed, that
to seek to fly by initiating the beating OF
a birds wings was not the proper way
to proceed: that instead of trying this
impossible feat men should initiate those
birds which fly with steady wings and
avail themselves of the currents of the
air.
Mouillard spoke to small audience
indeed, only the first OF his p works , ap,
pointed the way. and ten years after his
death the Wrights demonstrated that he
had the mystery. Long ago. no doubt he
could have built an aeroplane much like
scientists believed in him. and they could
never lend him the money that might
have made his dream a reality.
Never was there a life which seemed
more a failure than Louis Mouillard's.
When he died, in 1897, he could look back
on a career of honest effort that had met
only with disappointment and misfor-
tune. And now, fifteen years later, there
rises on the soil where the exile died in
poverty and friendlessness a monument
to proclaim the fact that the world owes
to him the first conception of the idea
which has made possible the new miracle
of flying. The mysterious faces that look
from the Egyptian tombs on the passing
centuries have seen just one more evil
dence of fate's infinite capacity for irony.
Louis Mouillard was the son of a dyer
of Lyons. From boyhood he was fascin-
ated by the flight of birds; he even man
aged to buy an eagle, which he hid In
the family garnet and studied with pas
sionate interest whenever he could es-
cape from his lessons and the duties Or
the shop. He measured the wings, he
watched the bird rise, until he became
convinced that he knew how it was done.
He and his admiring sister made an
aeroplane with some cotton and corset
bones and he determined to try flight.
The spot he chose for the attempt was
hill crowned with a church. 1t rose
abruptly from the plain, as is the way
with the hills of that country, and on
one side was a sheer cliff. From this
steepest side he was to fly. AT the SUI
preme moment the beadle OF the church
saw the young experimenter, rushed out,
boxed his ears. confiscated his machine
nd IA disgrace.
ended Louis Mouillard's first and last
attempt to practice his theories.
The boy was learning to draw. and
showed so much aptitude that 1t was
decided he should make ms ilVins py ms
talent He won a scholarship and went
to Paris to study under Ingres. But
while he drew and painted he still found
his chief pleasure in climbing the towers
of Notre Dame and watching the startled
birds fly out and noting how they flew.
X <
The death of his father stopped Mouil-
lards artistic career. He went to AL
geria. where he made a failure as a col
onist, but learned a great deal from the
new birds he found there. He saw the
sea birds rise and turn and fly against
the breeze without a movement of their
wings. He weighed the bodies Of the
measured the wing space and
took a step nearer to his great discovery.
Then came the really important adven-
ture. 1t did not seem startling at the
time, for 1t was only chance to teach
drawing at the PolytechnicaI School of
Cairo, but it brought him very near the
secret he was seeking. Five times a
week he crossed mile or so of desert,
and in that desert he saw the yultures.
1.-The masters of flight" he calls the
vultures. I'm the perfection of the re-
s-tS~ -
ment,' he adds. their flight is SO splen-
did that it overcomes the watcher. Every
time you look at it you are amazed that
none has tried to reproduce it. 1t Is so
simple, so exactly what We want, what
could we ask more than that steady
flight and those immense circles which
carry the bird out of sight in the heav-
ems They are all our desires realized"
More than that. Not only did he see
the vultures in flight over the desert, but
on the sculptured monuments OF the an
cient Egyptians he saw their mighty