The age-herald., 1901-09-30
From the London Spectator.

two QeIn1Ic enQS-Int COlSo NSNaS~-
 an efficient submarine boat and the ln- vention of a machine that can travel with at least two persons on board through the air.
 The former object will, we think De attained. The grand difficulty, that or bottling air sufficient to support life un- der water, has been surmounted and the remaining difficulty of extending the time during which the bottled air Is suf- ficient for healthy respiration, and of se- curing perfect direction, will doubtless be overcome. Neither of them involves impossibilities, and the governments of the world are so greatly interested in success that money for careful and per sistent experiment is sure to be forth coming. Whether the result will be quite so great as nose governments fancy may be a little doubtful.
 A slight advantage will no doubt be given to poorer states because they can afford submarine boats when they can not afford cruisers but the rich state will still be able to be build the larger fleets and in a battle beneath the waves those who fight can only die just as they do above them. The dominion of the seas will not be transferred to Holland or Portugal, and as regards the mercantile marine nothing will be ac- complished. There Is nothing to be gained in cash by going under the wa ter, and though blases and wealthy men may choose that mode of traveling just for It's novelty. the majority of travellers xxyfll nf and danQar- ous, and prefer fresh breezes on the sur face.
 It is necessary for each marine nation
 to keep its eyes open and see that no rival gets far ahead of 1t; but that being admitted, we see no particular effect to be produced by submarine boats. They cannot carry armies, and a deIensive submarine police Is, quite as much with in the range of calculation as any other defensive armament.
 The aerial ship is not so near realiza- tion and there Is a difficulty In the way.
 The inventors of the world scarcely have fair play. They are rarely rich the ex- periments are very costly and the gov
 ernments are not willing to find much
 money They have been so often de-
 ceived that they are shy of aerial Full
 tons. The evidence of a model Is, near ly worthless. for a model has nothing to
 carry, and succeeds almost to perfection
 when a real machine with perhaps five
 hundred weight on board in flesh. bones and apparatus for driving would inevita-
 bly, fail. Nevertheless, success is not a
 physical impossibility, for a condor does fly a considerable distance with lamb in its claws; and it Is difficult to believe
 that with his new motive powers and his power of raising in the air man can | not initiate and beat the condor.
 Inventors are not infrequent who are half crazy with interests in the subject | France Germany. Austria and England being at this moment all engaged upon | official experiments. They will not, 1t Is | true, do much with the ordinary balloon. That instrument, forced on the inventor rather by tradition than by thought, Is | too big to be of real service. It Is as | big as house in the air. and as the ob- | ject Is to defeat or evade the wind, the
 surface 1t presents is far too large to make 1t useful.
 Even if M. Santos-Dumont can do noth- | ing except when the air is calm, and as | 1t Is not the function of the air to be calm his opportunities are limited. Nor is 1t likely that any aeroplator of the or | dinary kind will succeed. The machine, to l be of any practical use must be able to pause in mid-air, and the naoment the | aeroplane pauses the strongest of known | forces. gravitation, has it in its fatal | grip. Its mat erials, being heavier than | air, must, if 1t Is stationary, come down, | as bird does if it dies, and it does come | down with unpleasant consequences. The | inventors of the day, however, seem to | us, who write as outsiders, to be advanc- | ing toward a combination of small bal | looms which are lighter than air. with | motors, which are heavier than air, that | may In the end produce the required re-
 suit. They will always be at the mercy | of great storms. as birds also are, but
 in ordinary weather they may fly for dis l tances settled by their motive power, | with tolerable safety and directness 1 The total result may not be very great, | for "argosies of magic sails are as un-
  bling in the central blue," but we should on the whole, think 1t probable that with | in a few years, 1t may be even months
 we may hear of machines which, carry | ing one or two skilful men, can, in the | absence of storms, cross the Mediter- | ranean in safety at height, say, of | fifty feet. There is no object whatever in | their going up into the sky, and one
 ultimate condition of useful aerial navi-
 gation will be that the drop, if drop there | be, shall not smash everything into pow
 der. Martyrs are rare products, and noth-
 ing is really useful which it takes mar | tyr to work.
 | Supposing this much to be accomplished and some of the conditions must be al
 tered if we are to achieve more-what 1 will have been attained? A good deal. In
 war, for example. there will be a new | power of throwing projectiles, and 1 though the exercise of that power has
 recently been forbidden by international | agreement, we distrust the effect of writ
 ten laws upon angry populations. Some
 nation would declare itself independent
 of agreements it had never signed. ant
 if it used war balloons it would be fought
 by war balloons-we may take as quit, | certain.
 The temptation to destroy a fleet whilt
 attacking a wealthy town would to tha
 town be irresistible-fancy Marseilles un
 der shell fire attending to any rules what
 ever-and the fleet would be destroyed