than the height of a tree or two, as also he only once put
himself in the risk of crossing the sea, and that was from
Calais to Dover, and the same morning he arrived in London.'

And yet there are still quite a number of people who persist in
stating that Bleriot was the first man to fly across the
Channel!

A study of the development of the helicopter principle was
published in France in 1868, when the great French engineer
Paucton produced his Theorie de la Vis d'Archimede. For some
inexplicable reason, Paucton was not satisfied with the term
'helicopter,' but preferred to call it a 'pterophore,' a name
which, so far as can be ascertained, has not been adopted by any
other writer or investigator. Paucton stated that, since a man
is capable of sufficient force to overcome the weight of his own
body, it is only necessary to give him a machine which acts on
the air 'with all the force of which it is capable and at its
utmost speed,' and he will then be able to lift himself in the
air, just as by the exertion of all his strength he is able to
lift himself in water. 'It would seem,' says Paucton, 'that in
the pterophore, attached vertically to a carriage, the whole
built lightly and carefully assembled, he has found something
that will give him this result in all perfection. In
construction, one would be careful that the machine produced the
least friction possible, and naturally it ought to produce
little, as it would not be at all complicated. The new
Daedalus, sitting comfortably in his carriage, would by means of
a crank give to the pterophore a suitable circular (or
revolving) speed. This single pterophore would lift him