ANTICIPATIONS.

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLVI, Issue 3250, 31 August 1928, Page 4

ANTICIPATIONS.

A remark was made at a luncheon given in London in honour of Sir Hubert Wilkins that one of his ancestors had suggested Arctic exploration as long ago as the middle of tho 17th century. This has led a contributor to the Melbourne. Argus to recall the career of the ancestor, who was Bishop John Wilkhi3. He was born in- 1611.

married the youngest sister^ of Oliver Cromwell, became a noted theologian and preacher, was warden of Wadham College, Oxford, for some years, and finally Bishop of Chester for four years until his death in 1672. A keen student of mathematics and natural philosophy, he was the chief founder lof the Royal Society and its first secretary. The writer claims for him predictions of the ability of men to fly and of aerial communication, and suggests that Sir Hubert Wilkins's achievements are a remarkable and romantic fulfilment of his ancestor's "singularly prophetic" treatises. The learned bishop's predictions, however, appear to have been as far from anticipating modern achievements as many other early experiments and speculations. One significant passage is quote*!: /'Those thing's which seem very difficult at the first may grow very facile after frequent trial and exercise. A_;d, therefore, he that would affect anything in this kind must be brought. up to the constant practice of it from his youth, trying at first only Co u.?e his wings by running on the ground, as an ostrich or tame goose will d_»_. touching the earth with his toes, and so, by degrees, learn 'to rise higher till he shall attain unto skill and confidence." This is hardly an original conception,' and while it is interesting that an eminent bishop 300 years ago should have so distinguished a descendant. Sir Hubert's famous ancestor would be.too modest to claim that he foresaw the sictual means by which now honours would be won for his name.