the Wright brothers, flying was regarded. Even unto this day
there are many who still believe that, with a pair of wings, man
ought to be able to fly, and that the mathematical data
necessary to effective construction simply do not exist. This
attitude was reasonable enough in an unlearned age, and Allard
was one--a little more conspicuous than the majority--among many
who made experiment in ignorance, with more or less danger to
themselves and without practical result of any kind.

The seventeenth century was not to end, however, without
practical experiment of a noteworthy kind in gliding flight.
Among the recruits to the ranks of pioneers was a certain
Besnier, a locksmith of Sable, who somewhere between 1675 and
1680 constructed a glider of which a crude picture has come down
to modern times. The apparatus, as will be seen, consisted of
two rods with hinged flaps, and the original designer of the
picture seems to have had but a small space in which to draw,
since obviously the flaps must have been much larger than those
shown. Besnier placed the rods on his shoulders, and worked the
flaps by cords attached to his hands and feet--the flaps opened
as they fell, and closed as they rose, so the device as a whole
must be regarded as a sort of flapping glider. Having by
experiment proved his apparatus successful, Besnier promptly
sold it to a travelling showman of the period, and forthwith set
about constructing a second set, with which he made gliding
flights of considerable height and distance. Like Lilienthal,
Besnier projected himself into space from some height, and then,
according to the contemporary records, he was able to cross a
river of considerable size before coming to earth. It does not
appear that he had any imitators, or that any advantage whatever