SANTOS DUMONT'S PROPHECY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7540, 15 August 1902, Page 4

SANTOS DUMONT'S PROPHECY.

TRANSATLANTIC AIRSHIP LIKE

THE " DEUTSCHLAND.

M. Santos Dumont has blossomed forth as an author, and the first fruits of his pen appear in the shape of an article called " Airships and Flying Machines," in the North American Review for June.

The intrepid aeronaut has perceived that it is not enough to build airships and " fly around the lightning-rod of the Eiffel Tower." The pen is mightier than the rerostat, and "before the serial idea becomes practical it will be necessary to popularise it by means of the pen." He forshadows, further, a series of magazine articles, and a treatise in different languages embodying his voluminous manuscripts on astronautics. There is to be a " boom " in aiaships.

There is a note of tragedy in tbe article for all its characteristic hopefulness, because M. Dumont refers to " the experiments which I hope to make in London in June " with his perfected " No. 6." The article was penned before the sad ending of that hope at the Crystal Palace the other day. M. Dumont starts by taunting Mr H. G. Wells for " prophesying " what M. Dumoat regards as an accomplished fact — viz., " the commg of ihe seroplanes." He next touches the much- vexed question of serostat v. aeroplane (in other words, balloon or flying machine ?) and proceeds to show that the only way to approach the true flying machine without a balloon |is by way of the navigable balloon. This M. Dumont is himself doing.

In f»c>, ho hopes in time to eliminate the balloon factor entirely, though he considers that for long and comfortable journeys the balloon form will always be preferable. He foresees the day when an airship the length of the Deutschlaad will transport 1000 passengers from New York to Havre in two days. Finally, he puts in an earnest plea for competitors in the conquest of the air.