That genius exemplified the antique saw regarding the infinite capacity for taking pains, for the Langley Memoir shows that as early as 1891 Langley had completed a set of experiments, lasting through years, which proved it possible to construct machines giving such a velocity to inclined surfaces that bodies indefinitely heavier than air could be sustained upon it and propelled through it at high speed. For full account (very full) of these experiments, and of a later series leading up to the construction of a series of 'model aerodromes' capable of flight under power, it is necessary to turn to the bulky memoir of Smithsonian origin.

The account of these experiments as given by Langley himself reveals the humility of the true investigator. Concerning them, Langley remarks that, 'Everything here has been done with a view to putting a trial aerodrome successfully in flight within a few years, and thus giving an early demonstration of the only kind which is conclusive in the eyes of the scientific man, as well as of the general public--a demonstration that mechanical flight is possible--by actually flying. All that has been done has been with an eye principally to this immediate result, and all the experiments given in this book are to be considered only as approximations to exact truth. All were made with a view, not to some remote future, but to an arrival within the compass of a few years at some result in actual flight that could not be gainsaid or mistaken.'