Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-06-15
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
Romance of the Air

THE route holds the true ro-
nance of the proposed globe-gird-
ling flight of Major Blake and his
British associates" remarks a bull
letin from the Washington. d. c.,
headquarters of the National Geo.
graphic Society.
Personal adventure ard service
tests are present here, but they are
not permanent as they were when
Lieut.. Commander Read flew across
the Atlantic ocean The voyages of
Magellan and Columbus are remem-
bered because they cut new paths
for civilization. If you will race out
on a globe or a world map the
route of Major Blake's party you
will realize very quickly why gener-
ations to comek ma rank their
course as epochal.
Follows Land Routes
"It follows the land wherever
land is to be found. Hitherto in
tercontinental travel has been con-
cerned with finding the shortest
water routes. But these flyers are
blazing a trail which skirts the edges
of the two great oceans to follow be
chain of the desolate Aleutians and
to touch the southern tips of Green
land and Iceland.
IF your mind goes along with
those scientists who foresee a day
when airplane travel will supplant
the ocean liner and il you will recall
what being along the travelled way
has meant to Portugal, Chicago,
Bagdad and Terra Haute. you will
find yourself in an o. Henry frame
of mind-wondering what soon may
be doing in Kodiak, Reykjavik. or
Cape Farewell.
The shortest way around the
world by airplane, it would seem.
is some $4,000 miles. AS you view
the route on your globe It looks like
two f~estoors, suspended from Ice
land and southern Alaska, with one
strand dipping to Karachi and CAL
cutta and the other to New York
and Chicago.
Segments Already Traverscd
The flyers will not W. the
whole distance in u~noharted aic.
That part of the route which i
from London, through Rome. Cairo
and Bagdad to India. Is substanti-
ally the course taken by the late Sir
Ross Smith on his air cruise to Aus
tralia.
THE Atlantic has been crossed
by Lieut.. Commander Read, Of the
American navy, and in a nonstop
flight by Capt. Alcock Of the British
army, but the curse of Major Blake,
via Newfoundland, Greenland and
Iceland is new. 1t may we'll be that
the trans Atlantic air travel which
seems a certainty of the not distant
future may find the more circuitous
route less hazardous. From New
foundland to the Azores Is approx
mately 400 miles while it is about
500 to Greenland with even shorter
jumps from Greenland to Iceland
and Iceland to Scotland.
1000 Miles Nearer Japan
THE British flyers also have as
a precedent on the Western Hem.s-
phere the carefully planned round
trip flight of Capt. Street,, U. S.
A., between New York and Alaska.
Perhaps no portion of the flight is
of more interest to Americans than
that from Kamchatka to Alaska.
Such a passage makes the Ola
World seem infinitely closer. Geog-
raphies have been briefly disposing
of the Aleutian chain of rocks, flow
err patches and volcanoes as a bar
rier between the Boring Sea and the
Pacific, but these islands now loom.
as stepping stones between two areas
of great economic potentiality. Jap
an is some 5000 miles from CONT
mental American soil by steamer out
of San Francisco; but is only 5000
miles removed by airship out OF the
Alaska Peninsula,
Even more fascinating conjec-
ture arises about the crossing OF
the Alaskan Gulf from Kodiak to
Sitka, for off Kodiak is situated that
eight world wonder, The Valley OF
Ten Thousand Smokes discovered
by National Geographic Society ex-
petitions sent to study Katmai, the
worlds greatest active volcano. h
region has been made a national
monument, and when it is accessible
it's fifty square miles Of steaming
assures and rainbows of Kissing
gases will form one of the most
Fascinating national parks"