As the existence of a corps of professors of mathematics is peculiar to our navy, as well as an apparent, perhaps a real, anomaly, some account of it may be of interest.

Until I was four years old I lived in the house of my paternal grandfather, about two miles from the pretty little village of Wallace, at the mouth of the river of that name.

What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed.

Though born in Nova Scotia, I am of almost pure New England descent.

All attempts at artificial aviation are not only dangerous to human life, but foredoomed to failure from the engineering standpoint.

Construction of an aerial vehicle which can carry even a single man . . . requires the discovery of some new metal or force. Even with such a discovery, we could not expect one to do more than carry its owner.

A few years later the Naval Academy was founded at Annapolis, and a similar course was pursued to provide it with a corps of instructors.