Looking forward

by Arthur Bird

CHAPTER XV.

Ærial Navigation Solved.

Science obtains mastery over the “ethereal blue.” Ærial navigation perfected in 1925. The name of New York city changed to that of Manhattan. Washington, in the State of Mexico, becomes the centre of all airship or ærodrome lines. The fascinations of ærial navigation. From Manhattan to San Francisco in thirty-six hours, with stops at Chicago, Omaha and Denver. Terrible mid-air accidents. An air train cloud bound.

The Dreamer, thus far, has invited the attention of the reader to the political conditions extant in 1999. In the preceding chapters we have contemplated with feelings exultant, national pride, the superb growth of the United States of the Americas, from a comparatively narrow strip of territory in 1899 to a magnificent Republic in 1999, consisting of eighty-five sovereign States, extending from Alaska to Patagonia, and embracing in one Republic the continents of North, Central and South America. In order to arrive at a lucid comprehension of the political status of the great American Republic and its relationship towards the world in 1899, we have reviewed the conditions of other nations of that period. We must now pass on to the consideration of other social and economic conditions which were prevalent in the American Republic during the twentieth century.

Do not imagine for one moment that in the brief compass of a century human nature Human Nature Remains The Same. had changed in any perceptible or appreciable degree. In the year 1899 the traits of humanity were identical with those which were known to the world in the days of the Cæsars. The ebb and flow of human passions, love and hatred in the days of the Pharaohs differed in nowise from those of 1899. If forty centuries did not change our human tendencies, it will not surprise the reader to learn that in 1999 the human family was much the same in its tastes and inclinations as in the nineteenth century.

The eighteenth century was an era of oak and sails; the nineteenth century proved to be an age of iron, steel and steam, but the twentieth century witnessed far greater strides of improvement resulting from the solution of the ærial navigation problem and the conquest of electricity. The solution of these two great problems alone rendered the twentieth century the most marvelous age of all since the birth of Christ.

Ever since humanity has trodden upon this green, fruitful world of ours; ever since the gaze of man has turned upward and penetrated the skies, from the days of Adam and perhaps ages before that first settler made his appearance on earth, the problem of ærial navigation has agitated human breast and brain. To solve this difficult secret has long been the acme of human ambition. In 1899 we knew very little more about ærial navigation than did Noah and his family in the days when Mt. Arrarat was first used as a dry-dock.

Quite certain it is that ærial navigation ten thousand years hence will be limited to A Limited Field After all. a moderate elevation from the earth. Never as long as the world endures will human beings with breath in their nostrils and blood in their veins reach or travel at an altitude of over six miles above the earth’s surface. We know this because death would overtake every venturesome traveler who soared into those higher regions. A thousand years hence the laws of nature will still remain immutably the same.

But the ambition of mankind is to control the air at a reasonable distance from the earth’s surface and to navigate an element that is entirely free from all obstructions. The aim is to so control an ærial machine that it will not drift before every wind, but cleave the air and move along its course in defiance of the storm. To this must be added a guarantee of safety that the public is certain to exact before embarking upon an ærial voyage. Ærial navigation, no doubt, offers vast attractions but while sailing through the air, with the ease and grace of a bird, it might prove very inconvenient for passengers to fall out at a height of a mile or two and land through the roof of some peaceful, happy home or find themselves while unceremoniously falling securely hooked in the fork of a tree. Such little mishaps in ærial navigation had to be guarded against.

Ærial navigation was perfected about the The First Airships. year 1925. After repeated failures of the Langley system from 1896 to 1920, the learned Washington professor changed his plans. Instead of endeavoring to lift flat-irons with wings from the ground, and watching turkey buzzards at anchor in the air over the Potomac river, Langley finally created an ærial machine that was operated by electricity and moved by a large, swiftly revolving propeller, somewhat resembling those employed in steam navigation, but with blades at a more abrupt angle.