Evening star., 1926-12-04
GOTHAM LECTURES
ON FR|CANFL|GHTS
Noted British Aviator Who
Made Lond0n-to-AustraIia
Trip Speaks Here.

Speeding through dust storms ana
blazing neat Of mid Africa, engag-
ing a thousand natives to tramp
down an airdrome SO they could take
Off after a neavy rain, circling around
the misty, rainbow grandeur or We
torta Falls, peering from the air
into the 1,300-foot hole at Kimberley
where prospectors once scooped up
diamonds-these and an amazing
variety Of other experiences were re-
counted and shown in air pho.o-
graphs by Sir Alan Gotham wh.n
he lectured last evening before mem :
bers of the National Geographic So
ciety at the Washington Auditorium.
Sir Alan explained that his Lon
don to Cairo fight was undertaken
to survey intermediate air routes
for future plane travel, to test his
machine and engine in q tropical
monsoon period, and to demons trafe'
the sound possibilities OF aerial
travel In places where easy COM
munication had not hitherto been
possible.
DR.. Gilbert Grosvenor, president or
the National Geographi: Society, N
introducing him, said that Sir Alan
had travelled more than 100000 miles
all told. in the air.
Cites Exploring Possibilities.
The aviator pointed out the ex-
ploration possibilities of the airplane
and compared his own fight of three
days to the source of the Nile as
compared with the three years It
took the first white man to SEQ the
area
The trip to Cape Town and back
was made in an airplane which al.
ready had flown from London to
Rangoon, and the same plane later
was used in the speakers historic
flight from England to Australia and
return.
This indicates that the life Of an
airp1ane is much longer than the lay.
man commonly believes" he said. An
air-cooled engine was used in the
flight: bait the weight saved by that
was somewhat offset by the quantity
Of drinking water that had to be taken
in the event Of a desert landing.
Motion Pictures Shown.
Motion pictures started with the
Pyramids and the Sphinx, then hav.
ing ''its toe nails manicured." and
thence up the vegetation river" with
the Nile running like a silver ribbon
though it's center, past the barren Val.
ley Of the Kings and Luxor where. he
whimsically remarked, they had a
rain once-I think 1t was 10 years
ago"
Fuzzy Wuzzy" Of Sudan fighting
fame was caught at one landing, and
the camera recorded native women so
anxious to scrub the plane that they
had to be restrained lest they injured
it. A "sheik" Of the desert was not
all that motion picture attendance
would lead one to hope for; but the
dance Of native blacks was a most
realistic exhibition of what would be
called the charleston"
In contrast to the ancient native OK
driven irrigation wheels was the
mighty Assuan dam. built by q
struct something else as enduring as
the Pyramids, and the water pouring
through the slulces at the rate OF 10
tons q second with such force that a
water cushion" has to be provided
lest the base Of the giant structure
be worn away.
Views Of Uganda.
Uganda, where the natives grow
their own cotton, and an upper Nile
dam which will irrigate cotton lands:
Rhodesia with its 16-foot ant hills
used as bunkers on golf courses: Pre-.
toria with it's parliament house, re-
puted to be the finest building In the
Southern Hem sphere, and some Of the
most remarkable pictures ever taken
on land or air Of the Victoria Falls,
showing the plane plunging in and out
of the mighty columns of spray. and
chasing the rainbows that form above
it, were other views caught on the
remarkable fight and shown last
evening.
In Uganda the natives have made
considerable progress in mechanical
ways, the pictures showed, though
their enthusiasm sometimes leads to
curious results--such as that Of the
boy with bicycle equipped with three
motor horns and four bells.