THE CLIPPERS IN 1937

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22308, 24 January 1938, Page 19

THE CLIPPERS IN 1937

Pan-American Airways Achievements NEW RECORDS MADE forty-eight weekly roundtrip flights across the Pacific were made by Pan American Airways Clippers durin" 1937 out oi a possible 52. This is the year's record of performance in the maintenance of regular commercial air services aver the world's longest transoceanic airway, connecting the United Suits ■fend Asia. year 836.000 miles were flown bj the .Clippers without untoward incident, accident, or a single fatality In addition to carrying record loads of mail, express and other air cargo the Clippers at the years close were Hearing the 10,000,000 passenger-mile mark.

In 1937 the Pan American Airwavs trans-Pacific route via Honolulu Midu' a> '-' ana « Guam was extended neariy HKH) mues to connect the t'hiiip,p;nes with China, by way of the Portuguese colony of Macao and the British Crown colony of Hong Kong Connecting Kai-Tak airport, at the latter place, with Imperial Airways' transOriental route from Europe, this provided for the first time direct air service from the United States more than three-quarters of the way round the world.

New Zealand Survey In addition to flying nearly' a million! miles in regular scheduled services' icross the north Pacific, a second trans-Pacific aerial trade route was surveyed from San Francisco to Auckland, New Zealand, bv wav of Honolulu, Kingman Reef, and Pago Pago. Radio stations and meteorolog.cal services were established along this new airway, and at the year's end it was announced after a final southbound survey flight that the 7000-mile route vras,ready to be opened for regular biweekly service. As commercial cargo and passenger 'carriers, the China. Philippine. Hawaii. and Hong Kong Clippers had an exciting and constructively serviceable year. In addition to reducing mail service time between the United States and the Orient to six days, the Clippers were instrumental in carrying much-needed serum into war-tor.'i China, in emergencies serving as flying ambulances. Perhaps the most exciting commercial cargo was that of the history-making newsreel films of the Panay sinking, the flight, of which across the world's largest ocean was followed by the entire world. In this routine across the Pacific a new record was incidentally established for the fastest time ever made between Honolulu and San Francisco. The new record was made by the Hawaii Clipper on November 19. when she flew from the Islands for which she is named to Alameda airport in 14 hours and 48 minutes. The previous record was 14 hours find 57 minutes, made by the China Clipper on April 30, 1936. ! Bath Tub Gardens Off the Philippine Clipper, when it last docked at Wake Island, the tiny mid-Pacific stopping point on Pan American Airways' trans-oceanic Bitroute to the Orient, there stepped a young farmer whose hands are never contaminated by soil. Protege of Professor W. F. Gerrick. assistant of plant physiology in the Division of Plant Nutrition. Department of Agriculture, University of California, and discoverer of the new science of aqua-cul-.hire, the young student farmer's task a six months' stay on the midI'racific islands will be totend the bath tub gardens of Wake. These "gardens." the material proof of Professor Gerrick's contention that soil is not an essential growth-medium for plant life, v/ere recently shipped to Pan American's Pacific island station, where plent-life giving soil is scarce. The principle of the bath tub garden is that, in the absence of soil, growing things may be cultivated to take elements essential to plant life from chemically-treated Water, not earth, becomes the growth-medium. The bath tub gardens of Wake consist of two trays, similar in design to ■"cold" frames with which all gardeners are familiar. Into the top tray, which rests over, touches tlie bottom tray (each tray is six feet by 24 feet) seeds are bedded down in any available waste material capable of lending base support to growing plants—lumber shavings are ideal. In the lower tray life-giving chemicals are dissolved in plain water. Into this solution, as it seeps upward by capillary attraction into the shavings, the "planted" seeds thrust their roots, thrive, blossom, and mature. Such, at least, has been the result under laboratory conditions at the University of California. It was to test the gardens under more practical conditions, and particularly under semi-tropical ones, which is a question of special interest to the agrobiologists, that the gardens were sent to Wake. The first farmer of Wake, who flew Into Wake by clipper to tend the gardens, is Lamory Laumeister. 23 years old, of 1706 Marin avenue, Berkeley, » senior at the University of California.