University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD. tial elements of safe and prolonged mechanical flight, used in public aero- nautical performances in Europe and America during the last seven years, comprehend the great problem which, I contend, was originally solved by Montgomery ; and to this western phy- sicist and mathematician, I believe, the impartial viewer will find, is primarily due the honor, not only of discovering, but of first practically demonstrating by physical experiments, the basic prin- ciples of aerial navigation. Born in California in 1858, the son of Hon. Zachary Montgomery, Assistant Attorney-General of the United States under Grover Cleveland ' s first admin- istration, this aeronautical scientist was in 1879 graduated from St. Ignatius College, San Francisco, thoroughly equipped for his chosen career. His early studies of bird-flight and wing- formation, and his numerous experi- ments with original soaring devices, earned the enthusiastic admiration of the brilliant Octave Chanute, who in later years expressed an ardent desire to experiment conjointly with Mont- gomery on the latter ' s farm at San Diego. At the International Conference of Aeronautical Scientists in Chicago dur- ing the world ' s Columbian Exposition in 1893, the Californian pi oclaimed new principles of human flight, to the utter amazement of the older scientists whose theories he assailed. Montgomery was a man of striking personality. His massive head, bald to the ears, sat firmly on immense broad shoulders, while his strong face, with its square jaw, resolute mouth, com- bative nose, and deep-set, penetrating black eyes, suggested an intellect and character of extraordinary grasp and power. His work in the sphere of aero- dynamics attracted widespread atten- tion. For a score of years he had la- bored incessantly in quest of the secret of aerial flight, and he felt that the secret was his at last, but failing to enlist capital in what the complacent earth-Avorms deemed an attempt to ac- complish the impossible, this humble Newton Avas forced by necessity to dis- continue for a time the work that most appealed to him and to avail himself opportunely of the proffered chair of Physics at Santa Clara University. A number of publications to which Professor Montgomery sent descriptive papers on aeronautics returned the ar- ticles with thanks, and one magazine offered the generous explanation that the matter was incomprehensible to most men and therefore not desirable for a periodical of general circulation. ' ' At Santa Clara, Montgomery utilized his spare hours in the construction of a flying-machine that should conform in every respect to the principles for- mulated by him; but, again, hampered by lack of means, and frequently criti- cized as a man who had turned great talents to little use, on account of an airship mania , he worked on silently and alone, but unceasingly, until, in 1905, he announced that he had built and tested in every conceivable way an aeroplane which possessed the essential