A MISCELLANY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 291, 9 December 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MISCELLANY.

News has come recently of the successful flight of another tail-loes aeroplane, and from what is remembered of tho early motor car and what it 1m become, it seems more than probable that the 'planes of to-day will soon be as-out of date as the first car. Lord Cardigan, the "Amateur Pilot, in his new book of that title (Putnam), has written a study of practical aeronautics more for the waverer than the expert. He would have the average man" as ready to fly to Pane as to take a bus down the road and take the train to town. In the chapter A Machine of One's Own" he is emphatic that an instructor is, for long, required, but is equally emphatic that almost anvoiic of ordinary capacity can fly, but adds that it should bo considered a's nn extra means of transport only. Tho air ritual is still elaborate. Nobody skips into a 'plane without _ going through a performance which is considered necessary for future safety— this is if nobody is employed to do it for you—and although 'planes have few vices thoso they have .mostly develop aloft. Gordon Buchanan lias made a hero and heroine of his father and mother, who, as thousands of others have done, set out as pioneers in a now land (in this case Queensland) and made a success of tho trek. We are still so near to the beginning of Australia as a whito man's country that such adventures as tho Buchanans had can be duplicated by many now alive, and it is only for the more un travelled and unsophisticated reader of European towns that this book will seem to tell of something strange and unusual. "Packhorsc and Waterholo" (Angus and Robertson) is a graceful tribute to worthy parents, and wo wish that other sons were as loyal and admiring.

Two young graduates were given a task of map-making in Labrador, and with two paid assistants epent a year or more ill the Far North. In "The Land that God Gave Cain" (Chatto and Windus) Mr. J. M. Scott has given his diary of events in which Mr. H. G. Watkins took the lead. Almost an unknown country is described—it is mostly snow and water —and, to use the author's own words, "I suppose one is influenced by the public's preference to read about hardship rather than comfort," and, of the book, "it is a disjointed collection of undignified hardships," The volume is quite generous in praise of those men who toiled for a pound or sixteen shillings a day, without the, prospect of being honoured by the Royal Geographical Society or thanked by the Government.