Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1934-02-01
BRISBANE
THIS WEEK
War Might Teach Us.
Germany Worries France.
Stratosphere Meteors.

Russia and Japan still talk war, Rus
STA loudly, Japan quietly. The Japanese
Emperor, which means his military
advisers, alone can declare war. No
body speaks for the Emperor until the
time has come to act.
This country hopes for no war, but
if war should come, the United States
might learn valuable lessons about fu.
ture wars. We should see in that war
tens of thousands gassed, cities de-
stroyed from the clouds, inhabitants
sent rushing into the country to escape
country inhabitants rushed to cities
for protection. Russian fire bombs
would destroy tens of thousands of the
highly infiammable Japanese dwell
ings.
Many disagreeable things would be
learned in such war.
This column said, more than twenty
years ago, and has often said since,
that around-the-world transportation in
the future will operate as follows:
Gigantic airships, sailing at least six
miles above the earth, where there are
no clouds or wind, will sail round and
round, dropping passengers at New
York, Paris, Toxic, Peiping, in small
swift planes, that will land them at
their destination and rejoin the big
ships.
Some called that fanciful "i.aag,na
ton"
Now the Waco Aircraft Co. poration
has received contracts to build two
planes to be attached to the dirigible
-iacon, ito permit landing of passen-
gers while the dirigible is in the air."
instead of bringing the huge airship
down to land groups of passengers.
Germany's Nazi Government shows
that two million men, formerly idle,
have recently been put to work.
The Paris Temps says many of them
are in factories adapted to manufac-
turing war material, and Germany to-
day possesses the most powerful war
equipment machine on the earth and
Germany could put on the battle field
twice as many trained men as France
could muster" With airplanes able to
smother the armies, that, you may say,
would mean little.
But Germany now has great flying
fleet, that could be changed to fight
ing, bombing fleet overnight. Stocks in
factories able to make war material
have risen violently in price on the
German Stock Exchange, which &C.
cording to Herriot means that GERMANY
expects to use them, to the limit and
soon. Many men have suddenly been
put to work in such factories. Germany
has twenty aircraft factories, against
eight in Britain, and could produce
twenty-five hundred new bombing and
pursuit planes every month. Unpleas-
ant war possibilities there.
Many new German air fields have
been equipped near the French border.
1t is one thing to win a war, another
thing to keep out of the next war.
Luckily, by the time that next war
comes this nation will owe so much
money that even Europe would hardly
have the heart to borrow from us.
When the big war started Uncle
Sam was in debt one little billion of
outstanding bonds. Now he owes twen-
ty-five billions and more, and is about
to add ten thousand millions, plus in
terest, to that debt.
Poor old dollar, Europe would sure.
ly, say, "Please send gold"
Scientists planning balloon ascen-
sions into the stratosphere, to study
cosmic rays, and the Germans, build
ing plane to fly five hundred miles an
hour through the unresisting, thin
stratosphere air, will be interested in
an article by Hans Christian Adamson,
published in the March of Events"
section of Mr.. Hearsts Sunday news
papers. Mr.. Adamson warns travellers
in the stratosphere that they may meet
an uncomfortable number of meteors,
not yet melted by contact with the
thick lower atmosphere.
According to DR.. Claude Fisher.
curator of astronomy at the American
Museum of Natural History, no fewer
than four hundred million meteors are
drawn by gravity into the earths at
mosphere every day, some small, some
big. The total number of meteors strik-
ing the earth amounts to more than a
hundred and forty-six thousand mil
lions in year.
An airplane flies from Washington.
D. c., to New York in fifty minutes. A
meteor would make the trip in fifteen
seconds. Passing through the thicker
atmosphere, meteors are raised to a
temperature of 5000 degrees. A small
one would destroy any airplane. Incl
dentally, meteors add every year one
hundred thousand tons to the weight
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