Barbour County index., 1910-09-07

WIFI an even roar II -gRRIBLT InJOREbH
that half deafens NSnH-as
you. The wind of
the open spaces sings in your ears
The wide wings are lifting you stead
lily higher and higher in great sweep
Ing circles as you climb the air lad
Ter toward the zenith. The world lies
spread out beneath you like colored
nap. You feel as free as the birds
If the air; you long to measure your
speed with the eagles.
Suddenly there is a crashing explo-
sion behind and beneath you, and the
wide and steady planes seem to
crumple up like a sick crows wings.
The earth seems to leap up to meet
you, and the rushing gale of air seems
to tear the breath from your lungs
Your senses reel as the tremendous
pull of gravity hurls you and your bro
ken machine and coughing engine to
the earth. Earth and sky seem to run
together in an awful burst OF fame,
and blackness and blessed oblivion
blot out the clouds and the good green
earth for you forever.
1t must be in some such manner
that the aviator dies. There is but
little evidence of the feelings that riot
through the human brain when
dropped from the clouds to the earth
beneath. Few men survive a fall OF
any height, in spite of the number
who are meeting with accidents In
their efforts to master the air. In
spite of the danger, which is admit
tedly great, the craze for the aero
plane and the sport Of aviation is
steadily growing. Yet ten years ago
the heavier-than-air flyers were mere
chimeras Of scientific brain.
On the seventeenth day of Decem-
Der, 1903, a thin-faced man hurled him
self out into the air from a sandy hill
side down in North Carolina. The
first of the wind riders in the worlds s
history made a long, gliding flight in
a biplane on the hill slope near Kitty
Hawk. Wilbur Wright was the first
Of the bird men to rise superior to the
air. Five years later the brother OF
the first man to fly was trying out
new and powerful aeroplane under the
direction of the officers of the United
States army. On September after
noon the strange new machine rose IN
full flight, carrying Lieutenant Self
ridge as a passenger. Orville Wright
was at the steering wheel. A guy
wire was snapped by whirling pro-
peller, the great wings crumpled up,
the mass of debris shot to the earth,
and Selfridge, the first of a long line
of martyrs to aviation, was dead at
Fort Meyer.
Since that September afternoon, less
than two years ago, % men have CIV
en- up their lives to conquer the elias
tic and yet stable element-the air
Within one week this summer eight
aviators and dirigible balloonists have
been killed Some notable things have
been accomplished by the earnest stu
dents and the more foolhardy of the
price Of success and mastery has been
over a score of lives. Some of the
men still in the game of flight have
been dangerously injured time after
time. Several of the nations of the
world are beginning to wake up to the
danger of inexperienced and irrespon
sible persons making flights. Austria
has passed laws regulating attempts
Of her citizens to conquer the air
Russia has put the ban on the owning
of machines by irresponsible persons
but 1t is generally understood thai
this is because of her fear of the new
distance annihilators in the hands Of
nihilists and the radical reds.
In the United States few folk are
beginning to wonder how long it will
be until something has to be done tC
stop the growing death roll among
pioneers of the air. Aviators and avi
alton were openly condemned a few
days ago by an influential journal o.
Cleveland, Ohio.
ITO Those Who Exalt Themselves,
the article was headed. and the fol
lowing reactionary ideas were ex
pressed: THE craze for dirigible bal
looms and airships should be legal,
restricted. 1t is unthinkable that the
Creator intended that man should In
habit the air or fly like the birds. H,
would have furnished him with wings
The numerous deaths that have oc
CURED from attempts to fly shoulc
warn man that his habitation anC
home is the earth"
But in spite Of warnings. published
and spoken. the craze for aviation re
mains unchecked. A thousand inven
tors are working in their shops, firm
In the belief that they are In sight o
the final secret that will wrest tn,
mastery of the upper air spaces from
the birds and place it In the hands o