A New Prize Offered. The True Line.

Progress, Volume III, Issue 10, 1 August 1908, Page 348

A New Prize Offered. The True Line.

M. Rene Quinton, the distinguished biologist, has offered a prize of 10,0001 (£400) to the aeronaut who will fly for five minutes without using his motor That is to say. M. Quinton asks merely that men should do for a few moments what birds have been doing for hours at a time daily for ages. M. Quinton 's proposal has made a sensation in sporting circles, and it is recognised that the question of the conquest of the air by "the heavier than air" is not likely to be solved until it becomes possible literally to sail in the air as do eagles, vultures, condors, and other birds. It should be said that the Wrights afurm that they have remained 72 seconds with their motor stopped in the teeth of the wind, at the same time flying again it. M. Quinton, interviewed by the Eclair, points out that the public makes a serious misrake in thinking that aerial navigation will never be practical owing to the immense force required and the obstacle caused by the wind. The truth, he says, is just the reverse. The carrier pigeon covers more than 1000 kilometres without eating or drinking — that is to say. without replenishing its motor — '"a clear proof of the small amount of coal or petroleum employed." The wind, therefore, instead of bfing an obstacle, is a source of strength which will render aeriaj locomotion one of the most rapid and economic in the world. M. Quinton is convinced that within a brief period we shall witness a spectacle similar to that of ten years ago in the ca^o of the motor-car industry.