Your obedient servant,
S. P. LANGLEY.
MEMORANDUM
ATTACHED TO MY LETTER OF THIS DATE TO THE BOARD OF ORDNANCE AND FORTIFICATION
While stating that I have, so far as I know, an exclusive right of property in the results of the experiments in aerodromics which I have conducted heretofore and am now conducting, and while understanding that this property and all rights connected with it, whether patentable or otherwise, will remain mine unqualifiedly, I am glad to place these results, without charge, at the service of the Board of Ordnance and Fortification for the special construction at present proposed, which seems to me to be of National utility. [p125]
I assume that no public statement will be made by the permission of the Board until the work is terminated, but that I may publish ultimately at my discretion a statement of any scientific work done in this connection.
I understand that the exercise of this discretion includes the ordering and purchase of all material by contract or in open market, and the employment of any necessary help, without restriction, and that, while I desire that no money shall pass through my hands, itemized bills for each expenditure, made in proper form and approved by me, will be paid by the Chief Signal Officer.
Much has already been spent at the Smithsonian Institution for the purpose in question, in special apparatus, tools and experiments, and in recent constructions now actually going on, which have involved still more time than money, and which are essential for experimental use in building the proposed machine; and since to re-create all this independently would greatly defer progress, I assume that my discretion includes the decision as to how far this shall be used and paid for at the cost of this allotment (it being understood that I have no personal property in any of the material which might be transferred for the purpose of the work); and I also assume that my discretion includes the decision as to where the work shall be conducted—that is, whether in shops already constructed, or in others to be elsewhere erected or rented, with the necessary adjuncts, whether on land or water, and generally whatever is necessary to the earliest attainment of the object desired by the Board.
S. P. LANGLEY.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, D. C.,