The daily Alaskan., 1918-01-30

Gs I said, he S.'.rlru S%it at i. and sc fur as 1 know he k not back yet. He may have been Shut down, he may have had an accident and been forced to land behind the German lines, or any one uf hundred things may have happened. All we know is that he failed to return.
 The anti-aircraft gun was practically unknown before the beginning of this war, and there iS uu enormous chance for improvement in this branch of aerial warfare. 1t is very interesting to watch an anti-aircraft gun in action, for one can see the gun drCd and then see the Sh2ll burst a few seconds later.
 So far as l know there is no accurate way of finding the range of an aero plane in motion. The popular way Of shooting at flying machine seems to be that of firing shells in a large circle, usiug the machine uS the center, and then closing in until the aeroplane is dead in line. There is tue uncertainty, however, of knowing when to time the shell to burst. aNl SO far as l can see, it seems to bc pretty much matter of luck. ] heard an average quoted on the number of hits 10 the number Of shells fired. and thc figures were one hit out of every &,Ovg shells. cannot vouch for the accuracy of this state mcnt. but q, know Chat the number or hits is surprisingly SmalL
 The falling of the shrapnel from these shells wliinh burst in the air Is rather dangerous. as can show by narrating an incident which happened to us. We were Out ln car near a village called Eraudhook, and We no- ticed as we came along that German aeroplane was coming directly toward us and that it appeared to be follow ing the roaJ 'OUr Gnti-aircraft guns were playing on it. md the shells seem ed to be bursting mighty close to 1t. Before it attained a point above us it turned at right angles and made or toward the German lines. We contin- ued on our way. and li,tle farther on We came to where an empty auto was standing in the middle of the road. We stopped and looked around Tor signs of the occupants. but could ma none. Wien we had been there about five minutes an officer and the driver of the car showed up and said they had been forced to take refuge in a dugout on account of the falling Shrap' nel.
 Holes where pieces of shrapnel had | entered the ground were to be seen all around, and we tried to dig some of the pieces up. We dug down ten inches and had not reached them, so we gave 1t up as a bad job and went on to camp This will show that these pieces Of shrapnel are not to be Sneered at us ] being harmless.
 Another favorite stunt with aero planes is the dropping of hundreds Of steel darts on bodies of moving troops l or even on towns or the men in the | trenches. These darts are four or five |
 inches in length and have a sort ot four pointed tail. They are extremely sharp and are heavier at the point than they are at the tail This causes them to fall point down.
 It has been proved that one of these darts dropped from a great height
 would, if it struck man on horseDacB square on the top of the head, pass through the length of mans body through the saddle, through the horses body and disappear into the ground, have seen darts that have been drop
 ped, but I have never been where they
 were falling, and had no desire to b' l either.
 There WAS a German who pulled tht