of disturbances should be within the bounds of possibility, and as the airship will always be in communication with the wireless stations on shore, we may be able to avoid bad weather altogether. (A deviation of a hundred miles or so, to escape the track of a storm, would not be a serious matter, even if one could not rise high enough to clear it.) Here, as far as we can at present perceive, are the bounds of practical flying. The discovery of wireless telegraphy has rendered serious navigation possible, and the extension of meteorology will make its progress spondingly safe and easy. corre II. THE HIGHWAY Conditions.-For nearly a thousand years the traffic of our country roads has seen but little change. Any new conditions that may have arisen from time to time have been of regular and slowly developing growth. Public opinion, finding expression in the laws governing traffic, had little difficulty in adjusting itself to these gradual innovations, until, at the end of the nineteenth century, the coming of the motor-car startled every one by the revolutionary changes that it brought about. From the resultant tangle and confusion certain main ideas have arisen, certain specific lines of thought, and a certain attitude of the public mind that will materially assist us in examining the problems of aerial flight and its regulation. At present, the number of craft passing overhead is inappreciable, but in a very short time-in a few years from now-we shall have a rapidly increasing multitude of balloons and aeroplanes soaring about all over the place, tumbling here and there, and literally bursting into the public notice. Private property extends downwards to the centre of the earth in a tapering wedge. Does it extend upwards indefinitely to the boundaries of the universe? To all intents and purposes it does at present. If a man chooses to build himself a tower ten miles high, no one can prevent him, at least it would be on other grounds than those of the limits of private property. Let us take, for instance, the case of a landed proprietor whose house stands in the centre of a walled park. In the privacy of his lawns and terraces he can disport himself at leisure. But what if a car-load of trippers hovering immediately overhead spies out his retreat with curious eyes, perhaps dropping sand-bags, or worse still empty bottles, on his flower beds, annoying him to the pitch of exasperation? We can imagine our landowner red in the face, shaking his fists heavenward, or cursing through a newspaper folded trumpet-wise-bringing out his rook rifle perhaps whilst the village policeman would be wondering how he could move them on! One may picture many such scenes. ... As soon as motors lost their novelty and became sufficiently numerous for the public to appreciate what a nuisance they could be, a great complaint was made, but it will be as nothing at all to the deafening tumult that will salute the ears of our newly-born aeronaut. In the first place, the motor had a certain right to the road, while he has no claim whatever to be over our heads! There will be the main question of damages, and then, what with articles dropping on to our heads or roofs, of ropes trailing through our gardens, of sparks setting fire to our stacks, of noxious exhaust gases floating down, of oil dripping, and of descents in all manner of places both wilful and accidental, there will be provocation enough and to spare in all conscience. Some infernal clanking noise just above the chimney pots may startle us from slumber, our horses may be scared in their own yards and paddocks, and a thousand horrors will spring up as the advance guard of the coming fleet of airships circles upward and spreads about its business. What the Oriental will say to this intrusion on the immemorial privacy of his house-top we cannot even imagine, but in our Western nations we may look for a general uprising of popular agitation, a defending of the free air of heaven, of the ancient unsullied sky-line and of all the old rights -with a hurried commencement of laws and regulations for the suppression or total abolition of the aeronaut. The great question is that of identification. Until we could lay our hands on the motor-car driver he was a serious danger, but when once we had numbered him he ceased to threaten. However swift he might be, the law could overtake him. Similarly, if we cannot identify the passing aeronaut, he is a most alarming visitor. It may be taken for granted, at once, that no private airship will be permitted without some simple and certain method of identification. Large numbers fixed beneath the framework might be of use in fine weather, but insufficient alone to serve the required end. The wireless telegraph or telephone offers the likeliest solution. An instrument that would give out its own number to passing stations, or respond to inquiries, automatically or otherwise, would suf fice. The aeronaut will certainly be under severe rules and penalties. Failure to descend when required by the police would entail imprisonment without the option of a fine, and all along the line we may look for a passing and enforc ing of stringent laws. Flying over inhabited places of more than a certain size will be forbidden altogether, for the danger to closely packed houses and crowded streets will be obvious; if not, a smash into Trafalgar Square, or some other busy place, will make it sufficiently clear to the densest mind. The question of trespass, with its aggravations of overlooking and the other nuisances already touched upon, will be settled by some simple stroke such as the limitation of private property to a certain height above the ground, say a hundred metres. Any one entering below that line will be liable for ordinary trespass, with a suitable penalty. Above, the aeronaut will be free to roam about at his own risk, liable to any claims for damages or nuisance that might be made by those beneath. As there will be a general prejudice against him he will stand a poor chance in the court of law, and as an Ishmael and a rich man he will be heavily taxed before he escapes. Apart from this, there will be certain fixed highways between the larger centres for the public aeroplanes, and here they will be on their own ground. We shall deal with these, however, at greater length below. As the motor appeared its regulation was taken in hand by our ordinary police, and the same force, for a time at any rate, will control the aerial traffic. There will be some alterations needed to our police stations. The telephone will be required, also an observing platform of some kind, and instruments for communicating with the aeronaut. At the larger centres there will be guard boats to catch the driver who refuses to descend, and these boats will be necessary adjuncts for the Coastguard Stations. Certain main routes between the more important points would be observed as ordinary highways, with a definite height and width. Any one crossing these lanes would have to pass them at a different level, and similarly a minor lane would have to dip underneath when crossing a major lane. Speed appeals to the majority of mankind, and flying will certainly be the premier sport of the world. There is a peculiar fascination about it, whether we approach it by means of a horse or a motor, on skates, on a toboggan, or (nearest of all) freewheeling down hill on a cycle; and the airship will give us unchecked, unlimited speed to handle at our will. Just fancy climbing upwards in a long spiral, high up until the world is left far below, above clouds or fog or rain into the eternal sunshine; to hang there for one delicious moment poised in the highest heaven-and then to dive with a clean clear swoop, fifty miles long! It will give to man all that he has ever accomplished in his wildest dreams, and, then indeed he will be able to sing of speed, and of his dominion over the air. The question of tariffs will need special handling. Boats landing in a foreign country will have to report themselves immediately to a custom station, and any omission in this respect will be a penal offence. One of the most important points will be the mail service. There will be postal subsidies for the big liners, and special mail boats where they are needed. This matter, together with the tariff difficulty, will call for an International Board, to deal generally with flying. The problems are so complex and the conditions so widespread, that no country will be able to handle the traffic alone, and it will have to be settled mutually by all the parties concerned. Sea ships are dealt with easily, for they can be detected and caught when they enter port, wherever it may be. There is an elaborate system of observation centred at Lloyd's, which deals with this, but airships will not be so easily managed, and the International Board will be forced into ex istence at an early date. Such a Board will have full control of the air all over the world. At first it will be occupied with the Navigation Laws (as apart from the by-laws which any particular locality may enforce), with the mail service, and, in a hesitating way, with the thorny subject of warfare, but, before long, forced on by the march of events, it will be taking over the wireless stations and the meteorological service. One can imagine such a board extending its boundaries in all directions, for the growing importance of flying will carry it on irresistibly, and ultimately it may be the foundation of that greater Board which will in due time arise for the purpose of world arbitration. III. WAR. There has been more than one romance written in which an airship, a sort of torpedo-destroyer, has suddenly appeared without any warning and has, forthwith, proceeded to dominate the whole world. A perfected flying machine of a hundred years hence would undoubtedly dominate the present-day world, just as our Dreadnought would have overpowered the allied forces of the world in 1800, smashing up every ship and every maritime fortress then in existence with the greatest possible ease. We may rest assured, however, that the perfect airship will not rise armed from the sea in one night. It will be the outcome, not of a sudden inspiration, but of slow arduous experiment, as all other hu man inventions have been. During the last fifty years there has been a running struggle between naval armor and naval guns. A has invented a gun that will pierce any known armor. B has brought a plate which will defy A's gun, and then C has appeared with an explosive that will hurl a shell through B's armor. So the battle has raged, not only be tween gun and armor, but between all other weapons of attack and defence, notably in the case of the torpedo, which has attained remarkable powers, following its prey with the most uncanny sagacity. We may look for a similar conflict between the airship and its opponents for a long time to come. Ultimately, the former will prevail, but for the present we may expect a race between attack and defence, on the accustomed lines. The dropping of explosives from balloons is prohibited. No one has been able to use such a weapon to any appreciable degree at present, but, as it comes more and more into the region of practical warfare, not all the conferences in the world will prevent its use, nor the use of any weapon as potent as this promises to be. The aeronaut will be armed with an instrument, a combination of telescope, range-finder, and plumb-line, which will enable him to drop a shell through a tube exactly over any desired spot. The barrel would be rifled to give the shell a spin, and so prevent deviation. Many things can be dropped that cannot be fired. There will be all sorts of novel chemical compounds, fierce explosives, and mixtures for suffocating, burning. pulverizing and annihilating the victim. The airship will devastate our cities, arsenals, and dockyards. She will smash up our forts, camps, and battleships, and will threaten alike our protected ports and our most sheltered inland towns. As soon as this is fairly realized there will be a hurrying to and fro for means of defence, whilst all the time the airship will go ahead, being tested, altered and improved, first taking part in one war and then another, and advancing towards perfection by hard-won steps. The attacking aeronaut, struggling against the wind, and manoeuvring to and fro to get as close to his prey as possible (he won't be able to hover definitely for a long time to come), will be getting shot, smashed, and killed in a variety of ways from beneath and from above. Until the defending fleet is destroyed there will be aerial engagements, mostly ramming. There will be a special form of guard-boat for defensive purposes built for hovering at great heights, probably drawing electrical power through a wire, and capable of staying aloft for an indefinite period. By day it would fire on attacking airships, using a light gun spraying out a stream of needle bullets, and at night it would scour the horizon with powerful searchlights. There will be guns, too, tremendously long quick-firing guns, fixed vertically, using small time-fuse shells containing high velocity explosives. Given accurate range-finding a battery of these should be able to land at least one shell in the vicinity of the airship, and the explosion at close quarters would wreck the vessel. Similar guns would be mounted on our ordinary sea ships in a sort of outrigger construction, one or more pairs on each side of the vessel. The lower part of the gun, protected by a cover, would be in the water when in use, and when travelling it would be slung up alongside. A vast amount of ingenuity will be expended in devising new weapons. There is in use at the present time in the vineyards of California a machine, known as the "hailstorm gun." It has a funnel for its barrel, and in a chamber at the bottom a charge of powder is fired and an air-ring ejected, resembling the smoke ring familiar to everybody. This vortex ring spinning round at high speed keeps its shape, and makes directly for the threatening storm cloud, which it strikes and disperses. One could imagine a modification of this weapon, to fire a vortex air spiral that would tear the attacking aeroplane wing from wing. Giant reflectors, or electrical rays, may be turned on the aeronaut, to paralyze him, or to render useless his batteries, or set fire to his store of explosives. Probably, however, the quick-firing gun keeping up a stream of shells will prove the most effective weapon of all. Certainly the navigator will have to keep a weather eye open in his earlier campaigns. As the struggle develops, there will be a halt in the construction of other classes of armament, the Powers ceasing to lay down ironclads, or to build forts; for it will be evident that any sudden improvement in aeronautics may give a decisive advantage to the attack over the defence, and all attention will be turned towards these experiments. Up to the present time the race between defence and attack has been wonderfully balanced, and further, any revolutionary weapon such as the quick-firing gun, or the torpedo, has been shared by all the Powers; but in aeronautics a small advance may at any moment place an enormous amount of power in a hitherto weak band. Nowhere has the mechanical progress of the last century been more notable than on the sea. Naval power has become a scientific affair, the fleet of to-day combining in itself the best work of the engineer, the designer and the chemist. Our sailor is DOW a trained mechanic, and he tends steadily to become more so and less of a fighter. On land there has been little real change since the battle of Agincourt. The problems that confront the modern general are almost identical with those for instance that awaited Napoleon. The marshalling of huge bodies of men, the arrangement of LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXV. 1831 detail, the attention to commissariat or ammunition, and the actual strategy of the battlefield have changed hardly at all in essence. They have changed so little, indeed, that Hannibal or Julius Cæsar might, with a little preliminary coaching, have conducted our South African campaign, and with somewhat different results! On the sea to-day the leading power of the moment reigns supreme, but on land every one is king in his own castle, more SO now than ever, thanks to smokeless powder and improved methods of defence. Just imagine what a startling change there will be when the conditions of naval warfare establish themselves over the land. What a difference it would have made in the Manchurian War! After the first night attack of the Japanese had disabled the Russian fleet, Port Arthur might have held out one day, but two days would have been the farthest limit. Again, what an alteration there would have been in South Africa! In the midst of that weary time, the appearance of Admiral Fisher, with a score of aeroplanes, would have wound it up in about a fortnight, without our colonels or major-generals troubling their brains any more about the matter. It means bringing the ironclad ashore, and that is a revolution indeed, both in spirit and in fact. The aerial battle will decide the campaign, and, even as the first sea power of to-day rules the waves, so then the first aerial power will be indisputably the ruler of the whole world. At the present moment there is a revival of the Channel Tunnel scheme, and our military authorities are rushing into print with arguments against the idea. The English Commander-inChief declares that Great Britain can no longer hold up her head as an independent Power if the tunnel is per |