SANTOS DUMONT'S PROPHECY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9485, 24 July 1902, Page 3

SANTOS DUMONT'S PROPHECY.

TRANSATLANTIC AIRSHIP LIKE THE DEUTSOHLAND.

M. Santos Dumont has blossomed forth as an author,- and the first fruits of his pen app?ar 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 aerostat., and "before the aerial idea becomes practical it will be necessary to popularise it by means of the pen." He foreshadows, further, a series of magazine articles, and a treatise in different languages embodying his voluminous manuscrips on aeronautics. There is to be I a "boom" in airships. There is a note of tragedy in the 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. Dumont regards as an accomplished fact— viz., "the coming of the aeroplanes." He next touches the much-vexed question of aerostat 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 foot, he 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. Deutschland 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.