Evening star., 1937-07-04
By Lucy Salamanca.


IF YOU don't believe in miracles
you just haven't any right living in
this day and age Life Is bound
to be for you one big jolt after
another, and the jolts-it IS apparent
from indications at the Patent ONCE,
the Bureau Of Standards. the Smith
sonian Institution. the Carnegie In
stitute, the Rockefeller Institute, the
National Institute of Health, the
National Academy OF Science, or al
most any other center concerned with
human progress-are due to come
thicker and faster One becomes
impressed with the fact, Is one am bles
about this Capital City of ours. that
right here in Washington we are, 20
to speak. sitting on the rocket. For
within our boundaries all the miracles
of today that will become the neces-
sites of tomorrow are either recorded,
patented, tried out, investigated or
first see the light of day. What We
may expect life to be like In the future
can be better asoertained from this
vantage point than from any other.
And the prospect, let me tell you, Is
pretty exciting.
Highways that sing, flooded by
night with 4 golden light: inventions
on television, instruments to further
the study OF telepathy, devices
for controlling the ionic content Of
the air. car that can instantly de-
tect flaws in rails as it speeds over
the tracks, devices which increase
the yield of gasoline by cracking oil
these are some of the impossible"
things that have been reduced to
measurements on paper and today
bear tidy patent tag Is material
evidence Of dream. Jules Verne
was q piker when 1t comes to the
flights of fancy INDUCED in-and
miraculously materialized-by auda-
cious modern thinkers.
There is not 4 single line of human
endeavor ON which an intelligent man
or woman can today put = finger to
say Farther than this we shall never
CO." Only thin, futile voices cry out
against progress that jots down how
many gallons OF fuel it will take to
propel 4 rocket to the moon or charts
with scholastic precision the latest
results of test in telepathy At
Duke University. The fantastic i'm
aginings of the shilling shockers"
have been shaped in steel and stone,
and there is absolutely nothing def
nitely impossible Of achievement.
I have a vivid recollection that
springs up at the moment to illustrate
that all things are relative and the
astounding becomes the commonplace
| had succeeded, in this instance, in
getting 4 battered old car OIL the
highway that leads out of Bogota td
the mountains of Boyaca, in the heart
of the Colombian wilderness. in South
America. Up An open horse trail
the little car lurched and wheezed
protesting every foot of the way al
being thus impelled into regions where
none Of its kind had ever set 4 wheel
before.
IT WAS necessary to crcumvent
trees, to describe parabolas in seek
ing the open fields, to roll through
shallow creeks and gain insecure hold!
upon sandy, stubhled hills but TIN
little car came through, and 1t VA
night. So that when We finally cam,
to halt beside the adobe wall thA
encircled an isolated hacienda TN thes>
hills 4 band Of Indians Of the regios
who had been born and reared II
those fields and had never travele<
beyond the horse trails saw the ca
as monster, with great, glowing eyss
moving upon them in the dark. In
credible that In the year OF our Lord
1929 there should exist Z band O
Indians up there In these mountain
near the village Of Duitama who has
never seen an automobile, but thaR,