GRAPHIC NOTINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 5

GRAPHIC NOTINGS.

By

LENS.

(Specially Written for the Otago Witness 1

When Man was made lie got the Land And then ’twas what was closs at hand. £w as left to him to gain the Sea, which some time later came to be. Behold, things now when, do and dare Hes added to them both the Air. Re-name the Map that gives The World With ev’ry Flag that flies unfurl’d— The Earth, The Earth, and one, nor fear, And ail the rest The Aerosphere.

Gracian, Spanish philosopher of some centuries ago, was a maxim-maker. Oft quoted are—“ The end justifies the means,” and “All things to all men.” But buried is—“ Everything is at the acme,” and it is the most impressive of all. What is meant by it is that, being unable to conceive of anything better than what is, we are apt to consider it the final achievement. The mind is on transit, and giving it rein we conclude that as regards the land part the first horse to be harnessed was considered the acme, and that as regards the water the first log to be hoL lowed out- was thought the* same. But horse to motor car and barge to fourfunnelled liner shows that our rude forefathers were lacking in vision. A noteworthy change in the general view of things has been with the aeroplane all through., The first to rise was frankly looked upon as an experiment, and the current type that can do 130 miles an hour is still far from giving unqualified satisfaction. For we admit of no real limit as to the size, and to very little as regards the speed, and with all we sec this—that the aeroplane will only touch the acme when it has become waterproof. Digest this thoroughly. Spread out a map of the two hemispheres on Mercator's Projection, and take 1 note of the fact that unless there are islands to break it the sea stretch of* a few thousand miles is viewed as -an obstacle. As about the most striking bxariiple of this recall that American circling when, saying that it would be round the world, it was only round the top of it, the one feared stage being across the Atlantic,' which was negotiated only by plying from .. Scotland to Iceland, and from Iceland to Greenland. , Recognising that the acme with the air will not be in sight till the aeroplane is water-proof the brains of this business are now at work to. produce a machine, the pilot of which, when he is travelling, will be -quite indifferent as to what is below him—land or sea. — This, however, ,is not to disdain what Nature has provided to facilitate matters.

Kind was the hand that Left the Rod Sea the greater ditch for the Suez Canal, and . the two Americas connected by a strained tendon for the Panama' Cut; and doubly kind -was it, for us of the Southern Seas, in placing those islands from the Malay Peninsula to Northern ; Australia as though to serve as steppingstones, if wanted, for the greatest of the air-ways. The dependence on as much was shown by the Smith brothers on their eventful flight from London to Melbourne, and later by Sir Alan Cobham on his. They were, overland journeys, and verily so, the arbitrary water breaks being mere nothings till Kupang was reached, '.nd the one from there to Darwin a comparative trifle. Why did they stop where they did? Why did they not complete things by making the final stage to New Zealand? Simply 'because the Tasman Sea is w-hat Byron conjured up in his composite ocean— ~

Time writes us wrinkles on thy azure brow Such as:the dawn beheldst thou rollest now and it is islandless. Era-marking mention is the one acquainting us -with the fact that the aeroplane that will ensure this great stretch being covered with the hopping-off is now on-the “stocks,” that day by day the experts are fashioning the water-proof machine that will do the Tasman Sea, if necessary, between the sunrise and sunset of a single midsummer’s day. In some old magazine or other there is a story—-fiction—of the first man who ever sailed out of sight of land —it was': the acme. Arid when, in actual modern' times, Cook made Australia in 19 days from Admiralty Bay he thought it wonderful, as did Buller, as shown by “Forty.'Years in New Zealand,”, when he reached Port Jackson in 18 weeks after wavingk“a last loving farewell to. Dover cliffs,” the one thing being in 1770 and the other in 1836. We of to-day are more modest because we are less, as when it comes to the third element to give us roads, we say—the acme only with a water-proof - aeroplane that, will do antipodes to antipodes under a fortnight. We want to make it picturesque. Addressing the visiting Premiers at the recent Imperial Conference the British Minister of Air said that two aeroplanes' were in cqurse of construction, either of which would be able to fly— From London to Canada in two arid ahalf days; ' ' ‘ From London to India in ' five days;

From London to South Africa in eight days; & From Loridon to Australia iu 11 daysand From London to New>Zcaland in 13 days. Here are the words as printed in a. London paper at the time: “The Secretary for Air referred to the opening at the end of the year of a regular civil air line to Karachi, enabling seven or eight days to be saved in the journey from England to India, and showed how this c P u ld become, with the necessary co-opera-tion, the first section of an Imperial Lino stretching from Australia to New Zealand.” We need to become more enthusiastic. in this matter, to be vivid, to touch the key that wHI vibrate. Speaking for Australia the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth said that the aeroplane had become an institution there w-hich, allowing for certain postal services and the fact'that one is always at command, was not quite correct. Compared with Europe and America both Australia and New Zealand have yet to get the aerial spirit. Thus, flying is so much the rule in Europe, aeroplane and dirigible, as to .have fairly cobwebbed the western side with, regular postal, parcel, and passenger lines; arid so much the same in America that it is a case of “By Air to Anywhere,” the while the crosscontinental line is a beaten track. It will be assumed that we, here, are -waiting for the machine that, having done Europe to Asia and Asia to Australia, will cross the Taspian Sea, and descend on our soil, putting out, as it were, that hand that is suggested in the drawing, and saying in effect“ Shake!” Then, perhaps, we shall begin to ask: “Why 13 days?” adding: “Why not 12?” and once we do, that will be the aerial spirit. Meanwhile we may reflect that the aeroplane at the same time as it has reduced the size of the world has also increased it. It has given riian what the elect have coveted from the day they commenced to study the stars —another element, and for transit purposes over long, distances, tha greatest of all. It brings to mind what Hamlet said when speaking of the species both physically and mentally—how. .in tlie one thing man is of inimitable construction, and how in the other is “like a god.” Optimism sounds the note —-from Loudon to New Zealand by air, this year or next.