Transcriber's note Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printererrors have been changed and are listed at the end. All otherinconsistencies are as in the original. WITH THE NIGHT MAIL A STORY OF 2000 A. D. (TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY MAGAZINE IN WHICH IT APPEARED) BOOKS BY RUDYARD KIPLING BRUSHWOOD BOY, THE CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS COLLECTED VERSE DAY'S WORK, THE DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES AND BALLADS AND BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS FIVE NATIONS, THE JUNGLE BOOK, THE JUNGLE BOOK, SECOND JUST SO SONG BOOK JUST SO STORIES KIM KIPLING BIRTHDAY BOOK, THE LIFE'S HANDICAP; Being Stories of Mine Own People LIGHT THAT FAILED, THE MANY INVENTIONS NAULAHKA, THE (With Wolcott Balestier) PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS PUCK OF POOK'S HILL SEA TO SEA, FROM SEVEN SEAS, THE SOLDIER STORIES SOLDIERS THREE, THE STORY OF THE GADSBYS, and IN BLACK AND WHITE STALKY & CO. THEY TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES UNDER THE DEODARS, THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW and WEE WILLIE WINKIE [Illustration: "A MAN WITH A GHASTLY SCARLET HEAD FOLLOWS, SHOUTING THATHE MUST GO BACK AND BUILD UP HIS RAY. "] With the Night Mail A STORY OF 2000 A. D. (TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY MAGAZINE IN WHICH IT APPEARED) BY RUDYARD KIPLING _Illustrated in Color_ BY FRANK X. LEYENDECKER AND H. REUTERDAHL [Decoration] NEW YORK Doubleday, Page & Company 1909 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1909, BY RUDYARD KIPLING PUBLISHED, MARCH, 1909 REPRINTED IN BOOK FORM BY PERMISSION OF THE S. S. McCLURE COMPANY ILLUSTRATIONS "A man with a ghastly scarlet head follows, shouting that he must go back and build up his Ray" _Frontispiece_ FOLLOWING PAGE "Slides like a lost soul down that pitiless ladder of light, and the Atlantic takes her" 31 The Storm 39 "I've asked him to tea on Friday" 58 WITH THE NIGHT MAIL A STORY OF 2000 A. D. With the Night Mail At nine o'clock of a gusty winter night I stood on the lower stages ofone of the G. P. O. Outward mail towers. My purpose was a run to Quebecin "Postal Packet 162 or such other as may be appointed"; and thePostmaster-General himself countersigned the order. This talisman openedall doors, even those in the despatching-caisson at the foot of thetower, where they were delivering the sorted Continental mail. The bagslay packed close as herrings in the long gray under-bodies which ourG.  P. O. Still calls "coaches. " Five such coaches were filled as Iwatched, and were shot up the guides to be locked on to their waitingpackets three hundred feet nearer the stars. From the despatching-caisson I was conducted by a courteous andwonderfully learned official--Mr. L. L. Geary, Second Despatcher of theWestern Route--to the Captains' Room (this wakes an echo of oldromance), where the mail captains come on for their turn of duty. Heintroduces me to the Captain of "162"--Captain Purnall, and his relief, Captain Hodgson. The one is small and dark; the other large and red; buteach has the brooding sheathed glance characteristic of eagles andaëronauts. You can see it in the pictures of our racing professionals, from L. V. Rautsch to little Ada Warrleigh--that fathomless abstractionof eyes habitually turned through naked space. On the notice-board in the Captains' Room, the pulsing arrows of sometwenty indicators register, degree by geographical degree, the progressof as many homeward-bound packets. The word "Cape" rises across the faceof a dial; a gong strikes: the South African mid-weekly mail is in atthe Highgate Receiving Towers. That is all. It reminds one comically ofthe traitorous little bell which in pigeon-fanciers' lofts notifies thereturn of a homer. "Time for us to be on the move, " says Captain Purnall, and we are shotup by the passenger-lift to the top of the despatch-towers. "Our coachwill lock on when it is filled and the clerks are aboard. ". .. "No. 162" waits for us in Slip E of the topmost stage. The great curveof her back shines frostily under the lights, and some minute alterationof trim makes her rock a little in her holding-down slips. Captain Purnall frowns and dives inside. Hissing softly, "162" comes torest as level as a rule. From her North Atlantic Winter nose-cap (wornbright as diamond with boring through uncounted leagues of hail, snow, and ice) to the inset of her three built-out propeller-shafts is sometwo hundred and forty feet. Her extreme diameter, carried well forward, is thirty-seven. Contrast this with the nine hundred by ninety-five ofany crack liner and you will realize the power that must drive a hullthrough all weathers at more than the emergency-speed of the "Cyclonic"! The eye detects no joint in her skin plating save the sweepinghair-crack of the bow-rudder--Magniac's rudder that assured us thedominion of the unstable air and left its inventor penniless andhalf-blind. It is calculated to Castelli's "gull-wing" curve. Raise afew feet of that all but invisible plate three-eighths of an inch andshe will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she is under controlagain. Give her full helm and she returns on her track like a whip-lash. Cant the whole forward--a touch on the wheel will suffice--and shesweeps at your good direction up or down. Open the complete circle andshe presents to the air a mushroom-head that will bring her up allstanding within a half mile. "Yes, " says Captain Hodgson, answering my thought, "Castelli thoughthe'd discovered the secret of controlling aëroplanes when he'd onlyfound out how to steer dirigible balloons. Magniac invented his rudderto help war-boats ram each other; and war went out of fashion andMagniac he went out of his mind because he said he couldn't serve hiscountry any more. I wonder if any of us ever know what we're reallydoing. " "If you want to see the coach locked you'd better go aboard. It's duenow, " says Mr. Geary. I enter through the door amidships. There isnothing here for display. The inner skin of the gas-tanks comes down towithin a foot or two of my head and turns over just short of the turn ofthe bilges. Liners and yachts disguise their tanks with decoration, butthe G.  P.  O. Serves them raw under a lick of gray official paint. Theinner skin shuts off fifty feet of the bow and as much of the stern, butthe bow-bulkhead is recessed for the lift-shunting apparatus as thestern is pierced for the shaft-tunnels. The engine-room lies almostamidships. Forward of it, extending to the turn of the bow tanks, is anaperture--a bottomless hatch at present--into which our coach will belocked. One looks down over the coamings three hundred feet to thedespatching-caisson whence voices boom upward. The light below isobscured to a sound of thunder, as our coach rises on its guides. Itenlarges rapidly from a postage-stamp to a playing-card; to a punt andlast a pontoon. The two clerks, its crew, do not even look up as itcomes into place. The Quebec letters fly under their fingers and leapinto the docketed racks, while both captains and Mr. Geary satisfythemselves that the coach is locked home. A clerk passes the waybillover the hatch-coaming. Captain Purnall thumb-marks and passes it to Mr. Geary. Receipt has been given and taken. "Pleasant run, " says Mr. Geary, and disappears through the door which a foot-high pneumatic compressorlocks after him. "A-ah!" sighs the compressor released. Our holding-down clips part witha tang. We are clear. Captain Hodgson opens the great colloid underbody-porthole throughwhich I watch million-lighted London slide eastward as the gale getshold of us. The first of the low winter clouds cuts off the well-knownview and darkens Middlesex. On the south edge of it I can see a postalpacket's light ploughing through the white fleece. For an instant shegleams like a star ere she drops toward the Highgate Receiving Towers. "The Bombay Mail, " says Captain Hodgson, and looks at his watch. "She'sforty minutes late. " "What's our level?" I ask. "Four thousand. Aren't you coming up on the bridge?" The bridge (let us ever bless the G.  P.  O. As a repository of ancientesttradition!) is represented by a view of Captain Hodgson's legs where hestands on the control platform that runs thwartships overhead. The bowcolloid is unshuttered and Captain Purnall, one hand on the wheel, isfeeling for a fair slant. The dial shows 4, 300 feet. "It's steep to-night, " he mutters, as tier on tier of cloud drops under. "We generally pick up an easterly draught below three thousand at thistime o' the year. I hate slathering through fluff. " "So does Van Cutsem. Look at him huntin' for a slant!" says CaptainHodgson. A fog-light breaks cloud a hundred fathoms below. The AntwerpNight Mail makes her signal and rises between two racing clouds far toport, her flanks blood-red in the glare of Sheerness Double Light. Thegale will have us over the North Sea in half an hour, but CaptainPurnall lets her go composedly--nosing to every point of the compass asshe rises. "Five thousand--six, six thousand eight hundred"--the dip-dial reads erewe find the easterly drift, heralded by a flurry of snow at thethousand-fathom level. Captain Purnall rings up the engines and keysdown the governor on the switch before him. There is no sense in urgingmachinery when Æolus himself gives you good knots for nothing. We areaway in earnest now--our nose notched home on our chosen star. At thislevel the lower clouds are laid out all neatly combed by the dry fingersof the East. Below that again is the strong westerly blow through whichwe rose. Overhead, a film of southerly drifting mist draws a theatricalgauze across the firmament. The moonlight turns the lower strata tosilver without a stain except where our shadow underruns us. Bristol andCardiff Double Lights (those statelily inclined beams over Severnmouth)are dead ahead of us; for we keep the Southern Winter Route. CoventryCentral, the pivot of the English system, stabs upward once in tenseconds its spear of diamond light to the north; and a point or two offour starboard bow The Leek, the great cloud-breaker of Saint David'sHead, swings its unmistakable green beam twenty-five degrees each way. There must be half a mile of fluff over it in this weather, but it doesnot affect The Leek. "Our planet's overlighted if anything, " says Captain Purnall at thewheel, as Cardiff-Bristol slides under. "I remember the old days ofcommon white verticals that 'ud show two or three thousand feet up in amist, if you knew where to look for 'em. In really fluffy weather theymight as well have been under your hat. One could get lost coming homethen, an' have some fun. Now, it's like driving down Piccadilly. " He points to the pillars of light where the cloud-breakers bore throughthe cloud-floor. We see nothing of England's outlines: only a whitepavement pierced in all directions by these manholes of variouslycoloured fire--Holy Island's white and red--St. Bee's interrupted white, and so on as far as the eye can reach. Blessed be Sargent, Ahrens, andthe Dubois brothers, who invented the cloud-breakers of the worldwhereby we travel in security! "Are you going to lift for The Shamrock?" asks Captain Hodgson. CorkLight (green, fixed) enlarges as we rush to it. Captain Purnall nods. There is heavy traffic hereabouts--the cloud-bank beneath us is streakedwith running fissures of flame where the Atlantic boats are hurryingLondonward just clear of the fluff. Mail-packets are supposed, under theConference rules, to have the five-thousand-foot lanes to themselves, but the foreigner in a hurry is apt to take liberties with English air. "No. 162" lifts to a long-drawn wail of the breeze in the fore-flange ofthe rudder and we make Valencia (white, green, white) at a safe 7, 000feet, dipping our beam to an incoming Washington packet. There is no cloud on the Atlantic, and faint streaks of cream roundDingle Bay show where the driven seas hammer the coast. A bigS.  A.  T.  A. Liner (_Société Anonyme des Transports Aëriens_) is divingand lifting half a mile below us in search of some break in the solidwest wind. Lower still lies a disabled Dane: she is telling the linerall about it in International. Our General Communication dial has caughther talk and begins to eavesdrop. Captain Hodgson makes a motion to shutit off but checks himself. "Perhaps you'd like to listen, " he says. "'Argol' of St. Thomas, " the Dane whimpers. "Report owners threestarboard shaft collar-bearings fused. Can make Flores as we are, butimpossible further. Shall we buy spares at Fayal?" The liner acknowledges and recommends inverting the bearings. The"Argol" answers that she has already done so without effect, and beginsto relieve her mind about cheap German enamels for collar-bearings. TheFrenchman assents cordially, cries "_Courage, mon ami_, " and switchesoff. Their lights sink under the curve of the ocean. "That's one of Lundt & Bleamers's boats, " says Captain Hodgson. "Serves'em right for putting German compos in their thrust-blocks. _She_ won'tbe in Fayal to-night! By the way, wouldn't you like to look round theengine-room?" I have been waiting eagerly for this invitation and I follow CaptainHodgson from the control-platform, stooping low to avoid the bulge ofthe tanks. We know that Fleury's gas can lift anything, as theworld-famous trials of '89 showed, but its almost indefinite powers ofexpansion necessitate vast tank room. Even in this thin air thelift-shunts are busy taking out one-third of its normal lift, and still"162" must be checked by an occasional downdraw of the rudder or ourflight would become a climb to the stars. Captain Purnall prefers anoverlifted to an underlifted ship; but no two captains trim ship alike. "When _I_ take the bridge, " says Captain Hodgson, "you'll see me shuntforty per cent. Of the lift out of the gas and run her on the upperrudder. With a swoop upwards instead of a swoop downwards, _as_ you say. Either way will do. It's only habit. Watch our dip-dial! Tim fetches herdown once every thirty knots as regularly as breathing. " So is it shown on the dip-dial. For five or six minutes the arrow creepsfrom 6, 700 to 7, 300. There is the faint "szgee" of the rudder, and backslides the arrow to 6, 500 on a falling slant of ten or fifteen knots. "In heavy weather you jockey her with the screws as well, " says CaptainHodgson, and, unclipping the jointed bar which divides the engine-roomfrom the bare deck, he leads me on to the floor. Here we find Fleury's Paradox of the Bulkheaded Vacuum--which we acceptnow without thought--literally in full blast. The three engines areH.  T.  &.  T. Assisted-vacuo Fleury turbines running from 3, 000 to theLimit--that is to say, up to the point when the blades make the air"bell"--cut out a vacuum for themselves precisely as over-driven marinepropellers used to do. "162's" Limit is low on account of the small sizeof her nine screws, which, though handier than the old colloidThelussons, "bell" sooner. The midships engine, generally used as areinforce, is not running; so the port and starboard turbinevacuum-chambers draw direct into the return-mains. The turbines whistle reflectively. From the low-arched expansion-tankson either side the valves descend pillarwise to the turbine-chests, andthence the obedient gas whirls through the spirals of blades with aforce that would whip the teeth out of a power-saw. Behind, is its ownpressure held in leash or spurred on by the lift-shunts; before it, thevacuum where Fleury's Ray dances in violet-green bands and whirledturbillions of flame. The jointed U-tubes of the vacuum-chamber arepressure-tempered colloid (no glass would endure the strain for aninstant) and a junior engineer with tinted spectacles watches the Rayintently. It is the very heart of the machine--a mystery to this day. Even Fleury who begat it and, unlike Magniac, died a multi-millionaire, could not explain how the restless little imp shuddering in the U-tubecan, in the fractional fraction of a second, strike the furious blast ofgas into a chill grayish-green liquid that drains (you can hear ittrickle) from the far end of the vacuum through the eduction-pipes andthe mains back to the bilges. Here it returns to its gaseous, one hadalmost written sagacious, state and climbs to work afresh. Bilge-tank, upper tank, dorsal-tank, expansion-chamber, vacuum, main-return (as aliquid), and bilge-tank once more is the ordained cycle. Fleury's Raysees to that; and the engineer with the tinted spectacles sees toFleury's Ray. If a speck of oil, if even the natural grease of the humanfinger touch the hooded terminals Fleury's Ray will wink and disappearand must be laboriously built up again. This means half a day's workfor all hands and an expense of one hundred and seventy-odd pounds tothe G.  P.  O. For radium-salts and such trifles. "Now look at our thrust-collars. You won't find much German compo there. Full-jewelled, you see, " says Captain Hodgson as the engineer shuntsopen the top of a cap. Our shaft-bearings are C. M. C. (CommercialMinerals Company) stones, ground with as much care as the lens of atelescope. They cost £37 apiece. So far we have not arrived at theirterm of life. These bearings came from "No. 97, " which took them overfrom the old "Dominion of Light, " which had them out of the wreck of the"Perseus" aëroplane in the years when men still flew linen kites overthorium engines! They are a shining reproof to all low-grade German "ruby" enamels, so-called "boort" facings, and the dangerous and unsatisfactory aluminacompounds which please dividend-hunting owners and turn skippers crazy. The rudder-gear and the gas lift-shunt, seated side by side under theengine-room dials, are the only machines in visible motion. The formersighs from time to time as the oil plunger rises and falls half an inch. The latter, cased and guarded like the U-tube aft, exhibits anotherFleury Ray, but inverted and more green than violet. Its function is toshunt the lift out of the gas, and this it will do without watching. That is all! A tiny pump-rod wheezing and whining to itself beside asputtering green lamp. A hundred and fifty feet aft down the flat-toppedtunnel of the tanks a violet light, restless and irresolute. Between thetwo, three white-painted turbine-trunks, like eel-baskets laid on theirside, accentuate the empty perspectives. You can hear the trickle ofthe liquefied gas flowing from the vacuum into the bilge-tanks and thesoft _gluck-glock_ of gas-locks closing as Captain Purnall brings "162"down by the head. The hum of the turbines and the boom of the air on ourskin is no more than a cotton-wool wrapping to the universal stillness. And we are running an eighteen-second mile. I peer from the fore end of the engine-room over the hatch-coamings intothe coach. The mail-clerks are sorting the Winnipeg, Calgary, andMedicine Hat bags: but there is a pack of cards ready on the table. Suddenly a bell thrills; the engineers run to the turbine-valves andstand by; but the spectacled slave of the Ray in the U-tube never liftshis head. He must watch where he is. We are hard-braked and goingastern; there is language from the control-platform. "Tim's sparking badly about something, " says the unruffled CaptainHodgson. "Let's look. " Captain Purnall is not the suave man we left half an hour since, but theembodied authority of the G.  P.  O. Ahead of us floats an ancient, aluminum-patched, twin-screw tramp of the dingiest, with no more rightto the 5, 000 foot lane than has a horse-cart to a modern town. Shecarries an obsolete "barbette" conning-tower--a six-foot affair withrailed platform forward--and our warning beam plays on the top of it asa policeman's lantern flashes on the area sneak. Like a sneak-thief, too, emerges a shock-headed navigator in his shirt-sleeves. CaptainPurnall wrenches open the colloid to talk with him man to man. There aretimes when Science does not satisfy. "What under the stars are you doing here, you sky-scrapingchimney-sweep?" he shouts as we two drift side by side. "Do you knowthis is a Mail-lane? You call yourself a sailor, sir? You ain't fit topeddle toy balloons to an Esquimaux. Your name and number! Report andget down, and be----!" "I've been blown up once, " the shock-headed man cries, hoarsely, as adog barking. "I don't care two flips of a contact for anything _you_ cando, Postey. " "Don't you, sir? But I'll make you care. I'll have you towed stern firstto Disko and broke up. You can't recover insurance if you're broke forobstruction. Do you understand _that_?" Then the stranger bellows: "Look at my propellers! There's been awulli-wa down under that has knocked us into umbrella-frames! We've beenblown up about forty thousand feet! We're all one conjuror's watchinside! My mate's arm's broke; my engineer's head's cut open; my Raywent out when the engines smashed; and . .. And . .. For pity's sake giveme my height, Captain! We doubt we're dropping. " "Six thousand eight hundred. Can you hold it?" Captain Purnall overlooksall insults, and leans half out of the colloid, staring and snuffing. The stranger leaks pungently. "We ought to blow into St. John's with luck. We're trying to plug thefore-tank now, but she's simply whistling it away, " her captain wails. "She's sinking like a log, " says Captain Purnall in an undertone. "Callup the Banks Mark Boat, George. " Our dip-dial shows that we, keepingabreast the tramp, have dropped five hundred feet the last few minutes. Captain Purnall presses a switch and our signal beam begins to swingthrough the night, twizzling spokes of light across infinity. "That'll fetch something, " he says, while Captain Hodgson watches theGeneral Communicator. He has called up the North Banks Mark Boat, a fewhundred miles west, and is reporting the case. "I'll stand by you, " Captain Purnall roars to the lone figure on theconning-tower. "Is it as bad as that?" comes the answer. "She isn't insured, she'smine. " "Might have guessed as much, " mutters Hodgson. "Owner's risk is theworst risk of all!" "Can't I fetch St. John's--not even with this breeze?" the voicequavers. "Stand by to abandon ship. Haven't you _any_ lift in you, fore or aft?" "Nothing but the midship tanks and they're none too tight. You see, myRay gave out and--" he coughs in the reek of the escaping gas. "You poor devil!" This does not reach our friend. "What does the MarkBoat say, George?" "Wants to know if there's any danger to traffic. Says she's in a bit ofweather herself and can't quit station. I've turned in a General Call, so even if they don't see our beam some one's bound to help--or else wemust. Shall I clear our slings. Hold on! Here we are! A Planet liner, too! She'll be up in a tick!" "Tell her to have her slings ready, " cries his brother captain. "Therewon't be much time to spare. .. . Tie up your mate, " he roars to thetramp. "My mate's all right. It's my engineer. He's gone crazy. " "Shunt the lift out of him with a spanner. Hurry!" "But I can make St. John's if you'll stand by. " "You'll make the deep, wet Atlantic in twenty minutes. You're less thanfifty-eight hundred now. Get your papers. " A Planet liner, east bound, heaves up in a superb spiral and takes theair of us humming. Her underbody colloid is open and hertransporter-slings hang down like tentacles. We shut off our beam as sheadjusts herself--steering to a hair--over the tramp's conning-tower. Themate comes up, his arm strapped to his side, and stumbles into thecradle. A man with a ghastly scarlet head follows, shouting that he mustgo back and build up his Ray. The mate assures him that he will find anice new Ray all ready in the liner's engine-room. The bandaged headgoes up wagging excitedly. A youth and a woman follow. The liner cheershollowly above us, and we see the passengers' faces at the salooncolloid. "That's a good girl. What's the fool waiting for now?" says CaptainPurnall. The skipper comes up, still appealing to us to stand by and see himfetch St. John's. He dives below and returns--at which we little humanbeings in the void cheer louder than ever--with the ship's kitten. Upfly the liner's hissing slings; her underbody crashes home and shehurtles away again. The dial shows less than 3, 000 feet. The Mark Boat signals we must attend to the derelict, now whistling herdeath song, as she falls beneath us in long sick zigzags. "Keep our beam on her and send out a General Warning, " says CaptainPurnall, following her down. There is no need. Not a liner in air but knows the meaning of thatvertical beam and gives us and our quarry a wide berth. "But she'll drown in the water, won't she?" I ask. "Not always, " is his answer. "I've known a derelict up-end and sift herengines out of herself and flicker round the Lower Lanes for three weekson her forward tanks only. We'll run no risks. Pith her, George, andlook sharp. There's weather ahead. " Captain Hodgson opens the underbody colloid, swings the heavypithing-iron out of its rack which in liners is generally cased as asettee, and at two hundred feet releases the catch. We hear the whir ofthe crescent-shaped arms opening as they descend. The derelict'sforehead is punched in, starred across, and rent diagonally. She fallsstern first, our beam upon her; slides like a lost soul down thatpitiless ladder of light, and the Atlantic takes her. [Illustration: "SLIDES LIKE A LOST SOUL DOWN THAT PITILESS LADDER OFLIGHT, AND THE ATLANTIC TAKES HER"] "A filthy business, " says Hodgson. "I wonder what it must have been likein the old days. " The thought had crossed my mind too. What if that wavering carcasshad been filled with International-speaking men of all theInternationalities, each one of them taught (_that_ is the horror ofit!) that after death he would very possibly go forever to unspeakabletorment? And not half a century since, we (one knows now that we are only ourfathers re-enlarged upon the earth), _we_, I say, ripped and rammed andpithed to admiration. Here Tim, from the control-platform, shouts that we are to get into ourinflators and to bring him his at once. We hurry into the heavy rubber suits--and the engineers are alreadydressed--and inflate at the air-pump taps. G.  P.  O. Inflators arethrice as thick as a racing man's "flickers, " and chafe abominably underthe armpits. George takes the wheel until Tim has blown himself up tothe extreme of rotundity. If you kicked him off the c. P. To the deck hewould bounce back. But it is "162" that will do the kicking. "The Mark Boat's mad--stark ravin' crazy, " he snorts, returning tocommand. "She says there's a bad blow-out ahead and wants me to pullover to Greenland. I'll see her pithed first! We wasted an hour and aquarter over that dead duck down under, and now I'm expected to gorubbin' my back all round the Pole. What does she think a postalpacket's made of? Gummed silk? Tell her we're coming on straight, George. " George buckles him into the Frame and switches on the Direct Control. Now under Tim's left toe lies the port-engine Accelerator; under hisleft heel the Reverse, and so with the other foot. The lift-shunt stopsstand out on the rim of the steering-wheel where the fingers of his lefthand can play on them. At his right hand is the midships engine leverready to be thrown into gear at a moment's notice. He leans forward inhis belt, eyes glued to the colloid, and one ear cocked toward theGeneral Communicator. Henceforth he is the strength and direction of"162, " through whatever may befall. The Banks Mark Boat is reeling out pages of A. B. C. Directions to thetraffic at large. We are to secure all "loose objects"; hood up ourFleury Rays; and "on no account to attempt to clear snow from ourconning-towers till the weather abates. " Under-powered craft, we aretold, can ascend to the limit of their lift, mail-packets to look outfor them accordingly; the lower lanes westward are pitting very badly, "with frequent blow-outs, vortices, laterals, etc. " Still the clear dark holds up unblemished. The only warning is theelectric skin-tension (I feel as though I were a lace-maker's pillow)and an irritability which the gibbering of the General Communicatorincreases almost to hysteria. We have made eight thousand feet since we pithed the tramp and ourturbines are giving us an honest two hundred and ten knots. Very far to the west an elongated blur of red, low down, shows us theNorth Banks Mark Boat. There are specks of fire round her rising andfalling--bewildered planets about an unstable sun--helpless shippinghanging on to her light for company's sake. No wonder she could not quitstation. She warns us to look out for the backwash of the bad vortex in which(her beam shows it) she is even now reeling. The pits of gloom about us begin to fill with very faintly luminousfilms--wreathing and uneasy shapes. One forms itself into a globe ofpale flame that waits shivering with eagerness till we sweep by. Itleaps monstrously across the blackness, alights on the precise tip ofour nose, pirouettes there an instant, and swings off. Our roaring bowsinks as though that light were lead--sinks and recovers to lurch andstumble again beneath the next blow-out. Tim's fingers on the lift-shuntstrike chords of numbers--1:4:7:--2:4:6:--7:5:3, and so on; for he isrunning by his tanks only, lifting or lowering her against the uneasyair. All three engines are at work, for the sooner we have skated overthis thin ice the better. Higher we dare not go. The whole upper vaultis charged with pale krypton vapours, which our skin friction mayexcite to unholy manifestations. Between the upper and the lowerlevels--5, 000, and 7, 000, hints the Mark Boat--we may perhaps boltthrough if. .. . Our bow clothes itself in blue flame and falls like asword. No human skill can keep pace with the changing tensions. A vortexhas us by the beak and we dive down a two-thousand-foot slant at anangle (the dip-dial and my bouncing body record it) of thirty-five. Ourturbines scream shrilly; the propellers cannot bite on the thin air; Timshunts the lift out of five tanks at once and by sheer weight drives herbulletwise through the maelstrom till she cushions with a jar on anup-gust, three thousand feet below. "_Now_ we've done it, " says George in my ear. "Our skin-friction thatlast slide, has played Old Harry with the tensions! Look out forlaterals, Tim, she'll want some holding. " "I've got her, " is the answer. "Come _up_, old woman. " She comes up nobly, but the laterals buffet her left and right like thepinions of angry angels. She is jolted off her course in four ways atonce, and cuffed into place again, only to be swung aside and droppedinto a new chaos. We are never without a corposant grinning on our bowsor rolling head over heels from nose to midships, and to the crackle ofelectricity around and within us is added once or twice the rattle ofhail--hail that will never fall on any sea. Slow we must or we may breakour back, pitch-poling. "Air's a perfectly elastic fluid, " roars George above the tumult. "Aboutas elastic as a head sea off the Fastnet, aint it?" [Illustration: THE STORM] He is less than just to the good element. If one intrudes on theHeavens when they are balancing their volt-accounts; if one disturbs theHigh Gods' market-rates by hurling steel hulls at ninety knots acrosstremblingly adjusted electric tensions, one must not complain of anyrudeness in the reception. Tim met it with an unmoved countenance, onecorner of his under lip caught up on a tooth, his eyes fleeting into theblackness twenty miles ahead, and the fierce sparks flying from hisknuckles at every turn of the hand. Now and again he shook his head toclear the sweat trickling from his eyebrows, and it was then thatGeorge, watching his chance, would slide down the life-rail and swab hisface quickly with a big red handkerchief. I never imagined that a humanbeing could so continuously labour and so collectedly think as did Timthrough that Hell's half hour when the flurry was at its worst. We weredragged hither and yon by warm or frozen suctions, belched up on thetops of wulli-was, spun down by vortices and clubbed aside by lateralsunder a dizzying rush of stars in the company of a drunken moon. I heardthe rushing click of the midship-engine-lever sliding in and out, thelow growl of the lift-shunts, and, louder than the yelling windswithout, the scream of the bow-rudder gouging into any lull thatpromised hold for an instant. At last we began to claw up on a cant, bow-rudder and port-propeller together; only the nicest balancing oftanks saved us from spinning like the rifle-bullet of the old days. "We've got to hitch to windward of that Mark Boat somehow, " Georgecried. "There's no windward, " I protested feebly, where I swung shackled to astanchion. "How can there be?" He laughed--as we pitched into a thousand foot blow-out--that red manlaughed beneath his inflated hood! "Look!" he said. "We must clear those refugees with a high lift. " The Mark Boat was below and a little to the sou'west of us, fluctuatingin the centre of her distraught galaxy. The air was thick with movinglights at every level. I take it most of them were trying to lie head towind but, not being hydras, they failed. An under-tanked Moghrabi boathad risen to the limit of her lift and, finding no improvement, haddropped a couple of thousand. There she met a superb wulli-wa and wasblown up spinning like a dead leaf. Instead of shutting off she wentastern and, naturally, rebounded as from a wall almost into the MarkBoat, whose language (our G. C. Took it in) was humanly simple. "If they'd only ride it out quietly it 'ud be better, " said George in acalm, as we climbed like a bat above them all. "But some skippers_will_ navigate without enough lift. What does that Tad-boat think sheis doing, Tim?" "Playin' kiss in the ring, " was Tim's unmoved reply. A Trans-AsiaticDirect liner had found a smooth and butted into it full power. But therewas a vortex at the tail of that smooth, so the T. A. D. Was flipped outlike a pea from off a fingernail, braking madly as she fled down and allbut over-ending. "Now I hope she's satisfied, " said Tim. "I'm glad I'm not a MarkBoat. .. . Do I want help?" The C. G. Dial had caught his ear. "George, you may tell that gentleman with my love--love, remember, George--that Ido not want help. Who _is_ the officious sardine-tin?" "A Rimouski drogher on the lookout for a tow. " "Very kind of the Rimouski drogher. This postal packet isn't being towedat present. " "Those droghers will go anywhere on a chance of salvage, " Georgeexplained. "We call 'em kittiwakes. " A long-beaked, bright steel ninety-footer floated at ease for oneinstant within hail of us, her slings coiled ready for rescues, and asingle hand in her open tower. He was smoking. Surrendered to theinsurrection of the airs through which we tore our way, he lay inabsolute peace. I saw the smoke of his pipe ascend untroubled ere hisboat dropped, it seemed, like a stone in a well. We had just cleared the Mark Boat and her disorderly neighbours when thestorm ended as suddenly as it had begun. A shooting-star to northwardfilled the sky with the green blink of a meteorite dissipating itself inour atmosphere. Said George: "That may iron out all the tensions. " Even as he spoke, theconflicting winds came to rest; the levels filled; the laterals died outin long easy swells; the airways were smoothed before us. In less thanthree minutes the covey round the Mark Boat had shipped theirpower-lights and whirred away upon their businesses. "What's happened?" I gasped. The nerve-storm within and the volt-tinglewithout had passed: my inflators weighed like lead. "God, He knows!" said Captain George, soberly. "That old shooting-star'sskin-friction has discharged the different levels. I've seen it happenbefore. Phew! What a relief!" We dropped from ten to six thousand and got rid of our clammy suits. Timshut off and stepped out of the Frame. The Mark Boat was coming upbehind us. He opened the colloid in that heavenly stillness and moppedhis face. "Hello, Williams!" he cried. "A degree or two out o' station, ain'tyou?" "May be, " was the answer from the Mark Boat. "I've had some company thisevening. " "So I noticed. Wasn't that quite a little draught?" "I warned you. Why didn't you pull out round by Disko? The east-boundpackets have. " "Me? Not till I'm running a Polar consumptives' Sanatorium boat. I wassquinting through a colloid before you were out of your cradle, my son. " "I'd be the last man to deny it, " the captain of the Mark Boat repliessoftly. "The way you handled her just now--I'm a pretty fair judge oftraffic in a volt-flurry--it was a thousand revolutions beyond anythingeven _I_'ve ever seen. " Tim's back supples visibly to this oiling. Captain George on the c. P. Winks and points to the portrait of a singularly attractive maidenpinned up on Tim's telescope-bracket above the steering-wheel. I see. Wholly and entirely do I see! There is some talk overhead of "coming round to tea on Friday, " a briefreport of the derelict's fate, and Tim volunteers as he descends: "Foran A. B. C. Man young Williams is less of a high-tension fool thansome. .. . Were you thinking of taking her on, George? Then I'll just havea look round that port-thrust--seems to me it's a trifle warm--and we'lljog along. " The Mark Boat hums off joyously and hangs herself up in her appointedeyrie. Here she will stay, a shutterless observatory; a life-boatstation; a salvage tug; a court of ultimate appeal-cum-meteorologicalbureau for three hundred miles in all directions, till Wednesday nextwhen her relief slides across the stars to take her buffeted place. Herblack hull, double conning-tower, and ever-ready slings represent allthat remains to the planet of that odd old word authority. She isresponsible only to the Aërial Board of Control--the A. B. C. Of whichTim speaks so flippantly. But that semi-elected, semi-nominated body ofa few score persons of both sexes, controls this planet. "Transportationis Civilization, " our motto runs. Theoretically, we do what we please solong as we do not interfere with the traffic _and all it implies_. Practically, the A. B. C. Confirms or annuls all internationalarrangements and, to judge from its last report, finds our tolerant, humorous, lazy little planet only too ready to shift the whole burdenof private administration on its shoulders. I discuss this with Tim, sipping maté on the c. P. While George fans heralong over the white blur of the Banks in beautiful upward curves offifty miles each. The dip-dial translates them on the tape in flowingfreehand. Tim gathers up a skein of it and surveys the last few feet, which record"162's" path through the volt-flurry. "I haven't had a fever-chart like this to show up in five years, " hesays ruefully. A postal packet's dip-dial records every yard of every run. The tapesthen go to the A.  B.  C. , which collates and makes composite photographsof them for the instruction of captains. Tim studies his irrevocablepast, shaking his head. "Hello! Here's a fifteen-hundred-foot drop at eighty-five degrees! Wemust have been standing on our heads then, George. " "You don't say so, " George answers. "I fancied I noticed it at thetime. " George may not have Captain Purnall's catlike swiftness, but he is allan artist to the tips of the broad fingers that play on the shunt-stops. The delicious flight-curves come away on the tape with never a waver. The Mark Boat's vertical spindle of light lies down to eastward, settingin the face of the following stars. Westward, where no planet shouldrise, the triple verticals of Trinity Bay (we keep still to the Southernroute) make a low-lifting haze. We seem the only thing at rest under allthe heavens; floating at ease till the earth's revolution shall turn upour landing-towers. And minute by minute our silent clock gives us a sixteen-second mile. "Some fine night, " says Tim. "We'll be even with that clock's Master. " "He's coming now, " says George, over his shoulder. "I'm chasing thenight west. " The stars ahead dim no more than if a film of mist had been drawn underunobserved, but the deep air-boom on our skin changes to a joyful shout. "The dawn-gust, " says Tim. "It'll go on to meet the Sun. Look! Look!There's the dark being crammed back over our bow! Come to theafter-colloid. I'll show you something. " The engine-room is hot and stuffy; the clerks in the coach are asleep, and the Slave of the Ray is near to follow them. Tim slides open the aftcolloid and reveals the curve of the world--the ocean's deepestpurple--edged with fuming and intolerable gold. Then the Sun rises andthrough the colloid strikes out our lamps. Tim scowls in his face. "Squirrels in a cage, " he mutters. "That's all we are. Squirrels in acage! He's going twice as fast as us. Just you wait a few years, myshining friend and we'll take steps that will amaze you. _We'll_ Joshuayou!" Yes, that is our dream: to turn all earth into the Vale of Ajalon at ourpleasure. So far, we can drag out the dawn to twice its normal length inthese latitudes. But some day--even on the Equator--we shall hold theSun level in his full stride. Now we look down on a sea thronged with heavy traffic. A big submersiblebreaks water suddenly. Another and another follow with a swash and asuck and a savage bubbling of relieved pressures. The deep-seafreighters are rising to lung up after the long night, and theleisurely ocean is all patterned with peacock's eyes of foam. "We'll lung up, too, " says Tim, and when we return to the c. P. Georgeshuts off, the colloids are opened, and the fresh air sweeps her out. There is no hurry. The old contracts (they will be revised at the end ofthe year) allow twelve hours for a run which any packet can put behindher in ten. So we breakfast in the arms of an easterly slant whichpushes us along at a languid twenty. To enjoy life, and tobacco, begin both on a sunny morning half a mile orso above the dappled Atlantic cloud-belts and after a volt-flurry whichhas cleared and tempered your nerves. While we discussed the thickeningtraffic with the superiority that comes of having a high level reservedto ourselves, we heard (and I for the first time) the morning hymn on aHospital boat. She was cloaked by a skein of ravelled fluff beneath us and we caughtthe chant before she rose into the sunlight. "_Oh, ye Winds of God_, "sang the unseen voices: "_bless ye the Lord! Praise Him and magnify Himforever!_" We slid off our caps and joined in. When our shadow fell across hergreat open platforms they looked up and stretched out their handsneighbourly while they sang. We could see the doctors and the nurses andthe white-button-like faces of the cot-patients. She passed slowlybeneath us, heading northward, her hull, wet with the dews of the night, all ablaze in the sunshine. So took she the shadow of a cloud andvanished, her song continuing. _Oh, ye holy and humble men of heart, bless ye the Lord! Praise Him and magnify Him forever. _ "She's a public lunger or she wouldn't have been singing the_Benedicite_; and she's a Greenlander or she wouldn't have snow-blindsover her colloids, " said George at last. "She'll be bound forFrederikshavn or one of the Glacier sanatoriums for a month. If she wasan accident ward she'd be hung up at the eight-thousand-foot level. Yes--consumptives. " "Funny how the new things are the old things. I've read in books, " Timanswered, "that savages used to haul their sick and wounded up to thetops of hills because microbes were fewer there. We hoist 'em intosterilized air for a while. Same idea. How much do the doctors say we'veadded to the average life of a man?" "Thirty years, " says George with a twinkle in his eye. "Are we going tospend 'em all up here, Tim?" "Flap along, then. Flap along. Who's hindering?" the senior captainlaughed, as we went in. We held a good lift to clear the coastwise and Continental shipping;and we had need of it. Though our route is in no sense a populated one, there is a steady trickle of traffic this way along. We met Hudson Bayfurriers out of the Great Preserve, hurrying to make their departurefrom Bonavista with sable and black fox for the insatiable markets. Weover-crossed Keewatin liners, small and cramped; but their captains, whosee no land between Trepassy and Blanco, know what gold they bring backfrom West Africa. Trans-Asiatic Directs, we met, soberly ringing theworld round the Fiftieth Meridian at an honest seventy knots; andwhite-painted Ackroyd & Hunt fruiters out of the south fled beneath us, their ventilated hulls whistling like Chinese kites. Their market is inthe North among the northern sanatoria where you can smell theirgrapefruit and bananas across the cold snows. Argentine beef boats wesighted too, of enormous capacity and unlovely outline. They, too, feedthe northern health stations in ice-bound ports where submersibles darenot rise. Yellow-bellied ore-flats and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down leisurelyout of the north like strings of unfrightened wild duck. It does not payto "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther than is necessary; but therisks of transhipping to submersibles in the ice-pack off Nain or Hebronare so great that these heavy freighters fly down to Halifax direct, andscent the air as they go. They are the biggest tramps aloft except theAthabasca grain-tubs. But these last, now that the wheat is moved, arebusy, over the world's shoulder, timber-lifting in Siberia. We held to the St. Lawrence (it is astonishing how the old water-waysstill pull us children of the air), and followed his broad line ofblack between its drifting ice blocks, all down the Park that the wisdomof our fathers--but every one knows the Quebec run. We dropped to the Heights Receiving Towers twenty minutes ahead of timeand there hung at ease till the Yokohama Intermediate Packet could pullout and give us our proper slip. It was curious to watch the action ofthe holding-down clips all along the frosty river front as the boatscleared or came to rest. A big Hamburger was leaving Pont Levis and hercrew, unshipping the platform railings, began to sing "Elsinore"--theoldest of our chanteys. You know it of course: _Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic_-- _Forty couple waltzing on the floor!_ _And you can watch my Ray, _ _For I must go away_ _And dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!_ Then, while they sweated home the covering-plates: _Nor-Nor-Nor-Nor-_ _West from Sourabaya to the Baltic--_ _Ninety knot an hour to the Skaw!_ _Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic_ _And a dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!_ The clips parted with a gesture of indignant dismissal, as thoughQuebec, glittering under her snows, were casting out these light andunworthy lovers. Our signal came from the Heights. Tim turned andfloated up, but surely then it was with passionate appeal that the greattower arms flung open--or did I think so because on the upper staging alittle hooded figure also opened her arms wide towards her father? * * * * * In ten seconds the coach with its clerks clashed down to thereceiving-caisson; the hostlers displaced the engineers at the idleturbines, and Tim, prouder of this than all, introduced me to the maidenof the photograph on the shelf. "And by the way, " said he to her, stepping forth in sunshine under the hat of civil life, "I saw youngWilliams in the Mark Boat. I've asked him to tea on Friday. " [Illustration: "I'VE ASKED HIM TO TEA ON FRIDAY"] AERIAL BOARD OF CONTROL BULLETIN Aerial Board of Control Lights No changes in English Inland lights for week ending Dec. 18. PLANETARY COASTAL LIGHTS. Week ending Dec. 18. Verde inclinedguide-light changes from 1st proximo to triple flash--green whitegreen--in place of occulting red as heretofore. The warning light forHarmattan winds will be continuous vertical glare (white) on all oasesof trans-Saharan N. E. By E. Main Routes. INVERCARGIL (N. Z. )--From 1st prox. : extreme southerly light (doublered) will exhibit white beam inclined 45 degrees on approach ofSoutherly Buster. Traffic flies high off this coast between April andOctober. TABLE BAY--Devil's Peak Glare removed to Simonsberg. Traffic makingTable Mountain coastwise keep all lights from Three Anchor Bay at leastfive shipping hundred feet under, and do not round to till beyond E. Shoulder Devil's Peak. SANDHEADS LIGHT--Green triple vertical marks new private landing-stagefor Bay and Burma traffic only. SNAEFELL JOKUL--White occulting light withdrawn for winter. PATAGONIA--No summer light south C. Pilar. This includes Staten Islandand Port Stanley. C. NAVARIN--Quadruple fog flash (white), one minute intervals (new). EAST CAPE--Fog flash--single white with single bomb, 30 sec. Intervals(new). MALAYAN ARCHIPELAGO lights unreliable owing eruptions. Lay from Somersetto Singapore direct, keeping highest levels. _For the Board_: CATTERTHUN } ST. JUST } _Lights. _ VAN HEDDER } Casualties Week ending Dec. 18th. SABLE ISLAND LANDING TOWERS--Green freighter, number indistinguishable, up-ended, and fore-tank pierced after collision, passed 300-ft. Level 2P. M. Dec. 15th. Watched to water and pithed by Mark Boat. N. F. BANKS--Postal Packet 162 reports _Halma_ freighter (Fowey--St. John's) abandoned, leaking after weather, 46° 15' N. 50° 15' W. Crewrescued by Planet liner _Asteroid_. Watched to water and pithed bypostal packet, Dec. 14th. KERGUELEN MARK BOAT reports last call from _Cymena_ freighter (GayerTong-Huk & Co. ) taking water and sinking in snow-storm South McDonaldIslands. No wreckage recovered. Addresses, etc. , of crew at all A. B. C. Offices. FEZZAN--T. A. D. Freighter _Ulema_ taken ground during Harmattan onAkakus Range. Under plates strained. Crew at Ghat where repairing Dec. 13th. BISCAY, MARK BOAT reports _Carducci_ (Valandingham line) slightly spikedin western gorge Point de Benasque. Passengers transferred _Andorra_(same line). Barcelona Mark Boat salving cargo Dec. 12th. ASCENSION, MARK BOAT--Wreck of unknown racing-plane, Parden rudder, wire-stiffened xylonite vans, and Harliss engine-seating, sighted andsalved 7° 20' S. 18° 41' W. Dec. 15th. Photos at all A. B. C. Offices. Missing No answer to General Call having been received during the last week fromfollowing overdues, they are posted as missing. _Atlantis_, W. 17630 Canton--Valparaiso _Audhumla_, W. 809 Stockholm--Odessa _Berenice_, W. 2206 Riga--Vladivostock _Draco_, E. 446 Coventry--Puntas Arenas _Tontine_, E. 3068 C. Wrath--Ungava _Wu-Sung_, E. 41776 Hankow--Lobito Bay General Call (all Mark Boats) out for: _Jane Eyre_, W. 6990 Port Rupert--City of Mexico _Santander_, W. 5514 Gobi-desert--Manila _V. Edmundsun_, E. 9690 Kandahar--Fiume Broke for Obstruction, and Quitting Levels VALKYRIE (racing plane), A. J. Hartley owner, New York (twice warned). GEISHA (racing plane), S. Van Cott owner, Philadelphia (twice warned). MARVEL OF PERU (racing plane), J. X. Peixoto owner, Rio de Janeiro(twice warned). _For the Board_: LAZAREFF } MCKEOUGH } _Traffic. _ GOLDBLATT } NOTES Notes High-Level Sleet The Northern weather so far shows no sign of improvement. From allquarters come complaints of the unusual prevalence of sleet at thehigher levels. Racing-planes and digs alike have suffered severely--theformer from unequal deposits of half-frozen slush on their vans (andonly those who have "held up" a badly balanced plane in a cross windknow what that means), and the latter from loaded bows and snow-casedbodies. As a consequence, the Northern and Northwestern upper levelshave been practically abandoned, and the high fliers have returned tothe ignoble security of the Three, Five, and Six hundred foot levels. But there remain a few undaunted sun-hunters who, in spite of frozenstays and ice-jammed connecting-rods, still haunt the blue empyrean. Bat-Boat Racing The scandals of the past few years have at last moved the yachting worldto concerted action in regard to "bat" boat racing. We have been treated to the spectacle of what are practically keeledracing-planes driven a clear five foot or more above the water, and onlyeased down to touch their so-called "native element" as they near theline. Judges and starters have been conveniently blind to thisabsurdity, but the public demonstration off St. Catherine's Light at theAutumn Regattas has borne ample, if tardy, fruit. In future the "bat"is to be a boat, and the long-unheeded demand of the true sportsman for"no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to beconceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift alike. Thegas compartments are permitted both fore and aft, as in the old type, but the water-ballast central tank is rendered obligatory. These thingswork, if not for perfection, at least for the evolution of a sane andwholesome _waterborne_ cruiser. The type of rudder is unaffected by thenew rules, so we may expect to see the Long-Davidson make (the patent onwhich has just expired) come largely into use henceforward, though thestrain on the sternpost in turning at speeds over forty miles an hour isadmittedly very severe. But bat-boat racing has a great future beforeit. CORRESPONDENCE Correspondence Skylarking on the Equator TO THE EDITOR--Only last week, while crossing the Equator (W. 26. 15), Ibecame aware of a furious and irregular cannonading some fifteen ortwenty knots S. 4 E. Descending to the 500 ft. Level, I found a party ofTransylvanian tourists engaged in exploding scores of the largestpattern atmospheric bombs (A. B. C. Standard) and, in the intervals oftheir pleasing labours, firing bow and stern smoke-ring swivels. Thisorgy--I can give it no other name--went on for at least two hours, andnaturally produced violent electric derangements. My compasses, ofcourse, were thrown out, my bow was struck twice, and I received twobrisk shocks from the lower platform-rail. On remonstrating, I was toldthat these "professors" were engaged in scientific experiments. Theextent of their "scientific" knowledge may be judged by the fact thatthey expected to produce (I give their own words) "a little blue sky" if"they went on long enough. " This in the heart of the Doldrums at 450feet! I have no objection to any amount of blue sky in its proper place(it can be found at the 2, 000 level for practically twelve months out ofthe year), but I submit, with all deference to the educational needs ofTransylvania, that "sky-larking" in the centre of a main-travelled roadwhere, at the best of times, electricity literally drips off one'sstanchions and screw blades, is unnecessary. When my friends hadfinished, the road was seared, and blown, and pitted with unequalpressure-layers, spirals, vortices, and readjustments for at least anhour. I pitched badly twice in an upward rush--solely due to thesediabolical throw-downs--that came near to wrecking my propeller. Equatorial work at low levels is trying enough in all conscience withoutthe added terrors of scientific hooliganism in the Doldrums. Rhyl. J. VINCENT MATHEWS. [We entirely sympathize with Professor Mathews's views, but unluckilytill the Board sees fit to further regulate the Southern areas in whichscientific experiments may be conducted, we shall always be exposed tothe risk which our correspondent describes. Unfortunately, a chimerabombinating in a vacuum is, nowadays, only too capable of producingsecondary causes. --_Editor_. ] Answers to Correspondents VIGILANS--The Laws of Auroral Derangements are still imperfectlyunderstood. Any overheated motor may of course "seize" without warning;but so many complaints have reached us of accidents similar to yourswhile shooting the Aurora that we are inclined to believe with Lavallethat the upper strata of the Aurora Borealis are practically one bigelectric "leak, " and that the paralysis of your engines was due tocomplete magnetization of all metallic parts. Low-flying planes often"glue up" when near the Magnetic Pole, and there is no reason in sciencewhy the same disability should not be experienced at higher levels whenthe Auroras are "delivering" strongly. INDIGNANT--On your own showing, you were not under control. That youcould not hoist the necessary N. U. C. Lights on approaching atraffic-lane because your electrics had short-circuited is a misfortunewhich might befall any one. The A. B. C. , being responsible for theplanet's traffic, cannot, however, make allowance for this kind ofmisfortune. A reference to the Code will show that you were fined on thelower scale. PLANISTON--(1) The Five Thousand Kilometre (overland) was won last yearby L. V. Rautsch, R. M. Rautsch, his brother, in the same week pullingoff the Ten Thousand (oversea). R. M. 's average worked out at a fractionover 500 kilometres per hour, thus constituting a record. (2)Theoretically, there is no limit to the lift of a dirigible. Forcommercial and practical purposes 15, 000 tons is accepted as the mostmanageable. PATERFAMILIAS--None whatever. He is liable for direct damage both toyour chimneys and any collateral damage caused by fall of bricks intogarden, etc. , etc. Bodily inconvenience and mental anguish may beincluded, but the average jury are not, as a rule, men of sentiment. Ifyou can prove that his grapnel removed _any_ portion of your roof, youhad better rest your case on decoverture of domicile (See Parkins _v_. Duboulay). We entirely sympathize with your position, but the night ofthe 14th was stormy and confused, and--you may have to anchor on astranger's chimney yourself some night. _Verbum sap!_ ALDEBARAN--War, as a paying concern, ceased in 1967. (2) The Conventionof London expressly reserves to every nation the right of waging war solong as it does not interfere with the world's traffic. (3) The A. B. C. Was constituted in 1949. L. M. D. --Keep her dead head-on at half-power, taking advantage of thelulls to speed up and creep into it. She will strain much less this waythan in quartering across a gale. (2) Nothing is to be gained byreversing into a following gale, and there is always risk of aturn-over. (3) The formulæ for stun'sle brakes are uniformly unreliable, and will continue to be so as long as air is compressible. PEGAMOID--Personally we prefer glass or flux compounds to any othermaterial for winter work nose-caps as being absolutely non-hygroscopic. (2) We cannot recommend any particular make. PULMONAR--For the symptoms you describe, try the Gobi Desert Sanitaria. The low levels of the Saharan Sanitaria are against them except at theoutset of the disease. (2) We do not recommend boarding-houses or hotelsin this column. BEGINNER--On still days the air above a large inhabited city beingslightly warmer--i. E. , thinner--than the atmosphere of the surroundingcountry, a plane drops a little on entering the rarefied area, preciselyas a ship sinks a little in fresh water. Hence the phenomena of "jolt"and your "inexplicable collisions" with factory chimneys. In air, as onearth, it is safest to fly high. EMERGENCY--There is only one rule of the road in air, earth, and water. Do you want the firmament to yourself? PICCIOLA--Both Poles have been overdone in Art and Literature. Leavethem to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send a stamp withyour verses. NORTH NIGERIA--The Mark Boat was within her right in warning you up onthe Reserve. The shadow of a low-flying dirigible scares the game. Youcan buy all the photos you need at Sokoto. NEW ERA--It is not etiquette to overcross an A. B. C. Official's boatwithout asking permission. He is one of the body responsible for theplanet's traffic, and for that reason must not be interfered with. You, presumably, are out on your own business or pleasure, and should leavehim alone. For humanity's sake don't try to be "democratic. " REVIEWS Reviews The Life of Xavier Lavalle (_Reviewed by Réné Talland. École Aëronautique, Paris_) Ten years ago Lavalle, "that imperturbable dreamer of the heavens, " asLazareff hailed him, gathered together the fruits of a lifetime'slabour, and gave it, with well-justified contempt, to a world bound handand foot to Barald's Theory of Vertices and "compensating electricnodes. " "They shall see, " he wrote--in that immortal postscript to "TheHeart of the Cyclone"--"the Laws whose existence they derided written infire _beneath_ them. " "But even here, " he continues, "there is no finality. Better a thousandtimes my conclusions should be discredited than that my dead name shouldlie across the threshold of the temple of Science--a bar to furtherinquiry. " So died Lavalle--a prince of the Powers of the Air, and even at hisfuneral Céllier jested at "him who had gone to discover the secrets ofthe Aurora Borealis. " If I choose thus to be banal, it is only to remind you that Céllier'stheories are to-day as exploded as the ludicrous deductions of theSpanish school. In the place of their fugitive and warring dreams wehave, definitely, Lavalle's Law of the Cyclone which he surprised indarkness and cold at the foot of the overarching throne of the AuroraBorealis. It is there that I, intent on my own investigations, havepassed and re-passed a hundred times the worn leonine face, white as thesnow beneath him, furrowed with wrinkles like the seams and gashes uponthe North Cape; the nervous hand, integrally a part of the mechanism ofhis flighter; and above all, the wonderful lambent eyes turned to thezenith. "Master, " I would cry as I moved respectfully beneath him, "what is ityou seek to-day?" and always the answer, clear and without doubt, fromabove: "The old secret, my son!" The immense egotism of youth forced me on my own path, but (cry of thehuman always!) had I known--if I had known--I would many times havebartered my poor laurels for the privilege, such as Tinsley and Herrerapossess, of having aided him in his monumental researches. It is to the filial piety of Victor Lavalle that we owe the two volumesconsecrated to the ground-life of his father, so full of the holyintimacies of the domestic hearth. Once returned from the abysms of theutter North to that little house upon the outskirts of Meudon, it wasnot the philosopher, the daring observer, the man of iron energy thatimposed himself on his family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, afarceur incarnate and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it mustbe written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as shewrites five years after the marriage, to her venerable mother, found "inthis unequalled intellect whose name I bear the abandon of a large andvery untidy boy. " Here is her letter: "Xavier returned from I do not know where at midnight, absorbed incalculations on the eternal question of his Aurora--_la belle Aurore_, whom I begin to hate. Instead of anchoring--I had set out theguide-light above our roof, so he had but to descend and fasten theplane--he wandered, profoundly distracted, above the town with hisanchor down! Figure to yourself, dear mother, it is the roof of themayor's house that the grapnel first engages! That I do not regret, forthe mayor's wife and I are not sympathetic; but when Xavier uproots mypet araucaria and bears it across the garden into the conservatory Iprotest at the top of my voice. Little Victor in his night-clothes runsto the window, enormously amused at the parabolic flight without reason, for it is too dark to see the grapnel, of my prized tree. The Mayor ofMeudon thunders at our door in the name of the Law, demanding, Isuppose, my husband's head. Here is the conversation through themegaphone--Xavier is two hundred feet above us. "'Mons. Lavalle, descend and make reparation for outrage of domicile. Descend, Mons. Lavalle!' "No one answers. "'Xavier Lavalle, in the name of the Law, descend and submit to processfor outrage of domicile. ' "Xavier, roused from his calculations, only comprehending the lastwords: 'Outrage of domicile? My dear mayor, who is the man that hascorrupted thy Julie?' "The mayor, furious, 'Xavier Lavalle----' "Xavier, interrupting: 'I have not that felicity. I am only a dealer incyclones!' "My faith, he raised one then! All Meudon attended in the streets, andmy Xavier, after a long time comprehending what he had done, excusedhimself in a thousand apologies. At last the reconciliation was effectedin our house over a supper at two in the morning--Julie in a wonderfulcostume of compromises, and I have her and the mayor pacified in beds inthe blue room. " And on the next day, while the mayor rebuilds his roof, her Xavierdeparts anew for the Aurora Borealis, there to commence his life'swork. M. Victor Lavalle tells us of that historic collision (_en plane_)on the flank of Hecla between Herrera, then a pillar of the Spanishschool, and the man destined to confute his theories and lead himintellectually captive. Even through the years, the immense laugh ofLavalle as he sustains the Spaniard's wrecked plane, and cries:"Courage! _I_ shall not fall till I have found Truth, and I hold _you_fast!" rings like the call of trumpets. This is that Lavalle whom theworld, immersed in speculations of immediate gain, did not know norsuspect--the Lavalle whom they adjudged to the last a pedant and atheorist. The human, as apart from the scientific, side (developed in his ownvolumes) of his epoch-making discoveries is marked with a simplicity, clarity, and good sense beyond praise. I would specially refer such asdoubt the sustaining influence of ancestral faith upon character andwill to the eleventh and nineteenth chapters, in which are contained theopening and consummation of the Tellurionical Records extending overnine years. Of their tremendous significance be sure that the modesthouse at Meudon knew as little as that the Records would one day be theworld's standard in all official meteorology. It was enough for themthat their Xavier--this son, this father, this husband--ascendedperiodically to commune with powers, it might be angelic, beyond theircomprehension, and that they united daily in prayers for his safety. "Pray for me, " he says upon the eve of each of his excursions, andreturning, with an equal simplicity, he renders thanks "after supper inthe little room where he kept his barometers. " To the last Lavalle was a Catholic of the old school, accepting--he whohad looked into the very heart of the lightnings--the dogmas of papalinfallibility, of absolution, of confession--of relics great and small. Marvellous--enviable contradiction! The completion of the Tellurionical Records closed what Lavalle himselfwas pleased to call the theoretical side of his labours--labours fromwhich the youngest and least impressionable planeur might well haveshrunk. He had traced through cold and heat, across the deeps of theoceans, with instruments of his own invention, over the inhospitableheart of the polar ice and the sterile visage of the deserts, league byleague, patiently, unweariedly, remorselessly, from their ever-shiftingcradle under the magnetic pole to their exalted death-bed in the utmostether of the upper atmosphere--each one of the IsoconicalTellurions--Lavalle's Curves, as we call them to-day. He haddisentangled the nodes of their intersections, assigning to each itsregulated period of flux and reflux. Thus equipped, he summons Herreraand Tinsley, his pupils, to the final demonstration as calmly as thoughhe were ordering his flighter for some midday journey to Marseilles. "I have proved my thesis, " he writes. "It remains now only that youshould witness the proof. We go to Manila to-morrow. A cyclone will formoff the Pescadores S. 17 E. In four days, and will reach its maximumintensity in twenty-seven hours after inception. It is there I will showyou the Truth. " A letter heretofore unpublished from Herrera to Madame Lavalle tells ushow the Master's prophecy was verified. (_To be continued_. ) ADVERTISING SECTION MISCELLANEOUS WANTS Required immediately, for East Africa, a thoroughly competent Plane andDirigible Driver, acquainted with Petrol Radium and Helium motors andgenerators. Low-level work only, but must understand heavy-weight digs. MOSSAMEDES TRANSPORT ASSOC. 84 Palestine Buildings, E. C. * * * * * Man wanted--Dig driver for Southern Alps with Saharan summer trips. Highlevels, high speed, high wages. Apply M. SIDNEY Hotel San Stefano. Monte Carlo * * * * * Family dirigible. A competent, steady man wanted for slow speed, lowlevel Tangye dirigible. No night work, no sea trips. Must be member ofthe Church of England, and make himself useful in the garden. M. R. , The Rectory, Gray's Barton, Wilts. * * * * * Commercial dig, central and Southern Europe. A smart, active man for aL. M. T. Dig. Night work only. Headquarters London and Cairo. A linguistpreferred. BAGMAN Charing Cross Hotel, W. C. (urgent. ) * * * * * For sale--A bargain--Single Plane, narrow-gauge vans, Pinke motor. Restayed this autumn. Hansen air-kit. 38 in. Chest, 15-1/2 collar. Canbe seen by appointment. N. 2650. This office. =The Bee-Line Bookshop= BELT'S WAY-BOOKS, giving town lights for all towns over 4, 000 pop. Aslaid down by A. B. C. THE WORLD. Complete 2 vols. Thin Oxford, limp back. 12s. 6d. BELT'S COASTAL ITINERARY. Shore Lights of the World. 7s. 6d. THE TRANSATLANTIC AND MEDITERRANEAN TRAFFIC LINES. (By authority of theA. B. C. ) Paper, 1s. 6d. ; cloth, 2s. 6d. Ready Jan. 15. ARCTIC AEROPLANING. Siemens and Galt. Cloth, bds. 3s. 6d. LAVALLE'S HEART OF THE CYCLONE, with supplementary charts. 4s. 6d. RIMINGTON'S PITFALLS IN THE AIR, and Table of Comparative Densities. 3s. 6d. ANGELO'S DESERT IN A DIRIGIBLE. New edition, revised. 5s. 9d. VAUGHAN'S PLANE RACING IN CALM AND STORM. 2s. 6d. VAUGHAN'S HINTS TO THE AIR-MATEUR. 1s. HOFMAN'S LAWS OF LIFT AND VELOCITY. With diagrams, 3s. 6d. DE VITRE'S THEORY OF SHIFTING BALLAST IN DIRIGIBLES. 2s. 6d. SANGER'S WEATHERS OF THE WORLD. 4s. SANGER'S TEMPERATURES AT HIGH ALTITUDES. 4s. HAWKIN'S FOG AND HOW TO AVOID IT. 3s. VAN ZUYLAN'S SECONDARY EFFECTS OF THUNDERSTORMS. 4s. 6d. DAHLGREN'S AIR CURRENTS AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 5s. 6d. REDMAYNE'S DISEASE AND THE BAROMETER. 7s. 6d. WALTON'S HEALTH RESORTS OF THE GOBI AND SHAMO. 3s. 6d. WALTON'S THE POLE AND PULMONARY COMPLAINTS. 7s. 6d. MUTLOW'S HIGH LEVEL BACTERIOLOGY 7s. 6d. HALLIWELL'S ILLUMINATED STAR MAP, with clockwork attachment, givingapparent motion of heavens, boxed, complete with clamps for binnacle. 36inch size, only £2. 2. 0. (Invaluable for night work. ) With A. B. C. Certificate, £3. 10s. 0d. Zalinski's Standard Works. PASSES OF THE HIMALAYAS. 5s. PASSES OF THE SIERRAS. 5s. PASSES OF THE ROCKIES. 5s. PASSES OF THE URALS. 5s. The four boxed, limp cloth, with charts, 15s. GRAY'S AIR CURRENTS IN MOUNTAIN GORGES. 7s. 6d. =A. C. BELT & SON, READING= SAFETY WEAR FOR AERONAUTS Flickers! Flickers! Flickers! =High Level Flickers= "_He that is down need fear no fall_" _Fear not! You will fall lightly as down!_ Hansen's air-kits are down in all respects. Tremendous reductions inprices previous to winter stocking. Pure para kit with cellulose seatand shoulder-pads, weighted to balance. Unequalled for all drop-work. Our trebly resilient heavy kit is the _ne plus ultra_ of comfort andsafety. Gas-buoyed, waterproof, hail-proof, non-conducting Flickers with pipeand nozzle fitting all types of generator. Graduated tap on left hip. =Hansen's Flickers Lead the Aerial Flight= =197 Oxford Street= The new weighted Flicker with tweed or cheviot surface cannot be distinguished from the ordinary suit till inflated. Flickers! Flickers! Flickers! APPLIANCES FOR AIR PLANES What "SKID" was to our forefathers on the ground, "PITCH" is to their sons in the air. The popularity of the large, unwieldy, slow, expensive Dirigible overthe light, swift Plane is mainly due to the former's immunity frompitch. Collison's forward-socketed Air Van renders it impossible for any planeto pitch. The C. F. S. Is automatic, simple as a shutter, certain as apower hammer, safe as oxygen. Fitted to any make of plane. COLLISON 186 Brompton Road _Workshops_, _Chiswick_ LUNDIE & MATHERS Sole Agts for East'n Hemisphere * * * * * Starters and Guides Hotel, club, and private house plane-starters, slips and guides affixedby skilled workmen in accordance with local building laws. Rackstraw's forty-foot collapsible steel starters with automatic releaseat end of travel--prices per foot run, clamps and crampons included. Thesafest on the market. _Weaver & Denison Middleboro_ AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLE GOODS _=Remember=_ =Planes are swift--so is Death= =Planes are cheap--so is Life= _Why_ does the 'plane builder insist on the safety of his machines? Methinks the gentleman protests too much. The Standard Dig Construction Company do not build kites. They build, equip and guarantee dirigibles. =_Standard Dig Construction Co. _= Millwall _and_ Buenos Ayres * * * * * Remember We shall always be pleased to see you. We build and test and guarantee our dirigibles for all purposes. They goup when you please and they do not come down till you please. You can please yourself, but--you might as well choose a dirigible. =STANDARD DIRIGIBLE CONSTRUCTION CO. = Millwall _and_ Buenos Ayres * * * * * HOVERS POWELL'S Wind Hovers for 'planes tying-to in heavy weather, save the motor and strain on theforebody. Will not send to leeward. "Albatross" wind-hovers, rigid-ribbed; according to h. P. And weight. _We fit and test free to 40° east of Greenwich_ L. & W. POWELL 196 Victoria Street, W * * * * * Gayer & Hutt Birmingham AND Birmingham Eng. Ala. Towers, Landing Stages, Slips and Lifts public and private Contractors to the A. B. C. , South-Western European Postal ConstructionDept. Sole patentees and owners of the Collison anti-quake diagonal tower-tie. Only gold medal Kyoto Exhibition of Aerial Appliances, 1997. AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLES C. M. C. Our Synthetical Mineral BEARINGS are chemically and crystallogically identical with the minerals whosenames they bear. Any size, any surface. Diamond, Rock-Crystal, Agate andRuby Bearings--cups, caps and collars for the higher speeds. For tractor bearings and spindles--Imperative. For rear propellers--Indispensable. For all working parts--Advisable. Commercial Minerals Co. 107 Minories * * * * * Resurgam! IF YOU HAVE NOT CLOTHED YOURSELF IN A Normandie Resurgam YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT BE INTERESTED IN OUR NEXT WEEK'S LIST OF AIR-KIT. Resurgam Air-Kit Emporium HYMANS & GRAHAM 1198 Lower Broadway, New York * * * * * Remember! ¶ It is now nearly a century since the Plane was to supersede theDirigible for all purposes. ¶ TO-DAY _none_ of the Planet's freight is carried _en plane_. ¶ Less than two per cent. Of the Planet's passengers are carried _enplane_. _We design, equip and guarantee Dirigibles for all purposes. _ Standard Dig Construction Company MILLWALL and BUENOS AYRES BAT-BOATS [Illustration] Flint & Mantel Southampton FOR SALE at the end of Season the following Bat-Boats: =GRISELDA=, 65 knt. , 42 ft. , 430 (nom. ) Maginnis Motor, under-rake rudder. =MABELLE=, 50 knt. , 40 ft. , 310 Hargreaves Motor, Douglas' lock-steeringgear. =IVEMONA=, 50 knt. , 35 ft. , 300 Hargreaves (Radium accelerator), Millerkeel and rudder. The above are well known on the South Coast as sound, wholesomeknockabout boats, with ample cruising accommodation. _Griselda_ carriesspare set of Hofman racing vans and can be lifted three foot clear insmooth water with ballast-tank swung aft. The others do not lift clearof water, and are recommended for beginners. Also, by private treaty, racing B. B. _Tarpon_ (76 winning flags) 137knt. , 60 ft. ; Long-Davidson double under-rake rudder, new this seasonand unstrained. 850 nom. Maginnis motor, Radium relays and Pondgenerator. Bronze breakwater forward, and treble reinforced forefoot andentry. Talfourd rockered keel. Triple set of Hofman vans, giving maximumlifting surface of 5327 sq. Ft. _Tarpon_ has been lifted _and held_ seven feet for two miles betweentouch and touch. _Our Autumn List of racing and family Bats ready on the 9th January. _ AIR PLANES AND STARTERS Hinks's Moderator ¶ Monorail overhead starter for family and private planes up totwenty-five foot over all Absolutely Safe _Hinks & Co. , Birmingham_ * * * * * J. D. ARDAGH I AM NOT CONCERNED WITH YOUR 'PLANE AFTER IT LEAVES MY GUIDES, BUT _TILLTHEN_ I HOLD MYSELF PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE, SAFETY, ANDCOMFORT. MY HYDRAULIC BUFFER-STOP _CANNOT_ RELEASE TILL THE MOTORS AREWORKING UP TO BEARING SPEED, THUS SECURING A SAFE AND GRACEFUL FLIGHTWITHOUT PITCHING. Remember our motto, "_Upward and Outward_, " and do not trust yourself toso-called "rigid" guide bars J. D. ARDAGH, BELFAST AND TURIN ACCESSORIES AND SPARES CHRISTIAN WRIGHT & OLDIS ESTABLISHED 1924 Accessories and Spares Hooded Binnacles with dip-dials automatically recording change of level(illuminated face). All heights from 50 to 15, 000 feet £2 10 0 With Aerial Board of Control certificate £3 11 0 Foot and Hand Foghorns; Sirens toned to any club note; with air-chest belt-driven from motor £6 8 0 Wireless installations syntonised to A. B. C. Requirements, in neat mahogany case, hundred mile range £3 3 0 Grapnels, mushroom anchors, pithing-irons, winches, hawsers, snaps, shackles and mooring ropes, for lawn, city, and public installations. Detachable under-cars, aluminum or stamped steel. Keeled under-cars for planes: single-action detaching-gear, turning carinto boat with one motion of the wrist. Invaluable for sea trips. Head, side, and riding lights (by size) Nos. 00 to 20 A. B. C. Standard. Rockets and fog-bombs in colours and tones of the principal clubs(boxed). A selection of twenty £2 17 6 International night-signals (boxed) £1 11 6 Spare generators guaranteed to lifting power marked on cover (pricesaccording to power). Wind-noses for dirigibles--Pegamoid, cane-stiffened, lacquered cane oraluminum and flux for winter work. Smoke-ring cannon for hail storms, swivel mounted, bow or stern. Propeller blades: metal, tungsten backed; papier-maché; wire stiffened;ribbed Xylonite (Nickson's patent); all razor-edged (price by pitch anddiameter). Compressed steel bow-screws for winter work. Fused Ruby or Commercial Mineral Co. Bearings and collars. Agate-mountedthrust-blocks up to 4 inch. Magniac's bow-rudders--(Lavalle's patent grooving). Wove steel beltings for outboard motors (non-magnetic). Radium batteries, all powers to 150 h. P. (in pairs). Helium batteries, all powers to 300 h. P. (tandem). Stun'sle brakes worked from upper or lower platform. Direct plunge-brakes worked from lower platform only, loaded silk orfibre, wind-tight. _Catalogues free throughout the Planet_ * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 30: "passenger's faces" changed to "passengers' faces". Page 41: "Instead of shuting" changed to "Instead of shutting". Page 68: "orgie" changed to "orgy". Page 71: "earth, and water" changed to "earth, and water". Page 82: "Milwall and Buenos Ayres" changed to "Millwall and BuenosAyres".