Golden Age, November 16, 1927
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Contents of the Golden Age
.-—2-- . ............------
Labor and Economics
Good Situatlon Oi’tw
Finance—Commerce—Tiunsportation
DzEbALUS ANB ICABUS U> TO DATE ............. 98
Speed and Height Records ............... 100
The Air Mail Service ............. - . . . 101 jj
Exploration and Other Uses ............... 102
Flying at Night . . . . . ............. • 103
I.ems in Airplane Design ................ 104
Airports and Airdromes ................ 108
Home and Health
Disease ano Easily Grave via the Modern Kitchen ...... 107
Travel and Miscellany
The Revival, of Hebrew ................. 110
What a Truk Scientist Expects ............. 124
.Religion and Philosophy
With Neatness and Dispatch .............. 110
What Else Could He Expect .............. 110
The Blessing of Old Glory ............... 110
The Princess Lowenstein’s Plane ............. 110
Price of Masses Doubled ................ 110
Turn About is Fair Play................110
Blessed abb ths Feablbss ................ Ill
Earth’s Greatest Empire ................ 117
To Win One a Year .................. 124
The Price of Rebellion, Stubbornness and Disobedience .... I2S
Bible Questions and Answers .............. 126
Little Studies fob Little People ............. 127 |
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The Golden Age
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Daedalus and Icarus Up to Date
IF THOSE old fellows of Greek literature, Dsedalus and Icarus, could come back and compare their mythical wax wings with the wings of a modern airplane, they would surely sit up and take notice. Some of them are now 100 feet across.
When the men now in middle life were boys they can remember -when the poem ridiculing “Darius Green and His Flying Machine” was a classic, and anybody who seriously thought that men would ever fly was considered a lunatic.
In 1709 a Brazilian priest invented an airplane, the lifting power of which was a network of iron to which large coral agates were attached. The agates were supposed to help in drawing the ship up when, through heat of the sun’s rays, they had acquired sufficient magnetic power. .Unfortunately they never got enough power, and so the scheme turned out like many others.
In 1896 Professor S. P. Langley made extended flights of a flying machine propelled by its own power; but nobody ever flew in it until after the machine had been remodelled, subsequent to his death.
In 1901 Professor Simon Newcomb and Rear Admiral Melville of the United States Navy proved mathematically the impossibility of human flight; and so now human beings are collectively flying more than ten million miles a year, just to prove that scientific figures are not always correct. The Wright Brothers made the first successful airplane flight at Kittyhawk, N. C., December 17,1903. The engine used weighed, over fifteen pounds to each horse-power.
It was a slow job developing an engine that would provide 1% horse-power for every pound of metal in the engine; but it has been done, and now human beings can and do beat the birds at their own game. The swiftest bird cannot keep pace with the slowest airplane.
Many valuable things were learned from the birds. The Wright Brothers spent hours and hours watching them critically. The discovery that birds do relatively little actual flying, but take advantage of the air currents, has had a powerful effect on airplane 'design.
The lifting of the airplane is caused by the formation of vacuums under the wings. As the machine speeds along, the air rushes into the vacuums formed beneath the wings, and pushes the plane higher and higher. The engines of modern airplanes turn the propellers at as high as 2,600 revolutions per minute, as against 1,200 only a few years back.
The World War Pushed Europe Ahead
TYE SPITE the fact that the airplane was de-veloped in the United States, yet until very recently the United States lagged far behind most European countries in the matter of opening and maintaining air routes, and is still slow. The World War pushed Europe ahead, but the United States is now catching up.
A late airplane map of Europe shows that there are thirteen air services to and from Berlin, eleven to Frankfurt, ten each to Cologne and Munich, nine to Hamburg, seven each to Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, six each to Brussels and Vienna, five each to London, Copenhagen, Basel and Danzig, four to Barcelona, three each to Geneva, Marseilles, Budapest, and Riga, two each to Venice, Moscow', Stockholm, Helsingfors, Bucharest, Sofia and Belgrade, and one each to Madrid, Rome, Constantinople, Warsaw and Oslo.
The French have a line to Casablanca in Africa. The British have one to Cairo, where passengers may transfer to a plane for Karachi, India. There were fifteen air mail routes in the United States at the close of 1926. The principal one is the transcontinental one between New York and San Francisco. The Swedes operate
the largest planes in Europe, with accommodations for twenty-five passengers, a crew of three men, a radio operator, and a lunch counter waitress.
In Germany 56,268 passengers were transported in 1926 without an injury, and 641 tons of freight were carried. British air imports and exports last year totalled $3,410,242 and are growing rapidly. In the United States there are 2,182 planes in service, of which 969 are commercial and 201 are air mail planes. The balance are government machines.
There are two routes in Brazil and one in Colombia.
Pioneers of the Air
ALL humanity is indebted to the pioneers of the air, the men who risk their lives doing the things that everybody will be doing a little ■while hence. It should not be thought that their lives are wasted, even if they fail; for as much is learned from failures as from successes.
In 1919 the U. S. naval seaplane NC-4 crossed the Atlantic Ocean via the Azores, landing at Lisbon, Portugal. A month later the British airmen Alcock and Brown made their historic flight from St. Johns, N. F., to Clif den, Ireland. Five years later the United States airmen flew around the world, taking over six months at their dangerous task.
In 1925 the PN9 No. 1 flew 1,700 miles from San Francisco toward Hawaii, but was forced down from lack of fuel. In the year 1927 several planes have negotiated this trip successfully, although many precious lives wore sacrificed in a vain attempt to do so.
In 1926 Sir Alan J. Cobham made a number of most remarkable flights, one from London to Cape Town, South Africa, and ietu.rn, and one from London to .Melbourne and return. 2d one stage of the flight over Africa Sir Alan encountered a temperature of 118° in the shade and 160° in the sun, but despite the great heat had no engine trouble whatever.
In J 926 Commodore R. Franco and three companions crossed from Spain to Argentina. Other distance flights were from Paris to Basra, Mesopotamia, from Paris to Omsk, Siberia, and from New York to Buenos Ayres.
In 1927 the gallant aviator De Pinedo set out to prove that a good aviator with a good seaplane can go practically anywhere with a good degree of safety. Starting from Italy he visited, South America, Central America and North America, completing a 25,000 mile journey which, included two crossings of the Atlantic Ocean and much unexplored country.
The year 1927 has been distinguished by Lindbergh’s flight to Paris, Chamberlin’s flight to Germany, Byrd’s flight to the coast of France, and many other important transoceanic flights, including one from Canada to London. Lindbergh’s flight of 3,600 miles consumed 33 hours; Chamberlin’s flight of 3,905 miles consumed 42 hours. German aviators hold the record for sustained flight.
On one occasion the trip from New York to San Francisco was made by daylight. On another occasion the 2,520 miles from New York to San Diego, California, was covered in a non-stop flight of 26 hours, 50 minutes.
Speed and Height Records
SIDE from the natural desire to outdo one another in making speed and height records, there are other considerations which move aviators to take an active interest in these matters. In ocean flights the distances are long, and the fliers dare not take one wink of sleep. To do so means death. Therefore the machines must be kept going at top speed, so that the billowy deep may be covered as soon as possible.
Speed in the air is not comparable to speed on the earth’s surface because of the absence of friction; and there seems to be no limit as to what a human being can endure in the way o£ speed, provided he keeps his liead inside the cockpit.
But there is evidently some limit to what metals can enduie, and it looks as if that limit had been about reached, though perhaps not. Bu& even now, when testing airplane engines, the tests are conducted in specially constructed rooms; and the tests are viewed only through, peepholes, because of the well-defined fear on the part of the makers that some weakness may develop and the engine fly into a hundred pieces®
The landplane record at present is held by the French, at 278.48 miles an hour, while the British have the seaplane record, at 281.49 miles an hour. Unofficial speeds up to 300 miles an hour have been reported but not confirmed, Aviators sometimes find it necessary to fly al heights of two and even three miles, on account! of clouds, or dust, or heat, while military men have other motives for attaining even greater heights. Army surgeons claim that at 45,000 feet, or about 8| miles, it would be impossible ifor an aviator to live, even with oxygen and electrical heaters.
Government Interest in Aviation
LTHOUGH aviation got its start during the World War, yet the part played by the
United States government in assisting its development since that time has not been one of vhich many Americans feel proud. The European governments seem to have been much wider awake.
The German government has laid down a rigid system of inspection and licensing which has resulted in almost complete elimination of accidents. Germany recognizes six requisites for safe flying, and every one of them is adhered to: A machine which is aerodynamically and structurally sound, a reliable engine of sufficient power, a competent and conservative pilot and navigator, airports and emergency landing fields sufficiently close together to insure gliding to safety, a nation-wide weather forecast which is specially adapted to the needs of fliers, and adequate charts of air routes.
There has been an International Aviation Congress, held in London, at which, however, the United States was not represented. Some of the rules adopted are that planes following railroads or canals must keep to the left, and when crossing them must cross at right angles. Calls for help are the letters PAN, calls in extreme distress are SOS as heretofore.
By the Air Commerce Act of 1926 the United States now maintains, as a branch of the Department of Commerce a bureau devoted to navigation of the air similar to that provided tor navigation of the water. At this writing about 1,500 personal applications for license have been filed and something over 500 licenses Sor planes. About a half-dozen prospective pilots have been rejected, some for defective vision, some for heart disease, and one because ■his nerves were gone and he was about ready for a collapse.
In the army service no flier is permitted to leave the ground until the weather reports are sufficiently good to justify the commanding officer of the field in clearing him. McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, is a sort of general center of the army air service. It is here that all damaged airplanes go for salvage of such parts as are salvable.
The Scientific 'American tells us that among young army fliers an air service officer who cannot fly is a keewee, a confused speaker is in a flat spin, the ceiling is the highest point an airplane can reach, depending on its horse-power and density, while an aircraft gun is an archie. When a plane is wrecked it is cracked up; and when a comrade has been killed, as is often the case, he is washed out.
Colonel Wm. Mitchell, formerly in the Army Air Corps, in a letter to the Washington Post, show’s how, for propaganda purposes, certain branches of the government seek notoriety in connection with aviation exploits with which they have little and sometimes no connection ■whatever :
The navy had nothing to do with Byrd’s flight to the North Pole. Byrd himself organized it, financed it, planned it out himself, irrespective of the navy. Th® navy had retired Byrd as physically unfit for duty. The money for Byrd’s expedition to the North Pole was obtained from Edsel Ford and other public-spirited citizens. The plane, christened the Josephine Ford, was built by a Dutchman, Anthony H. G. Fokker. The motors were American. The navy said little about Byrd’s trip until it had been successfully accomplished. Then they picked him as a means of propaganda in the same way that they have attempted to pick up Lindbergh. Another instance is that of Commander Rodger’s flight to the Hawaiian Islands, when he was sent out into the broad Pacific with inadequate arrangements for his rescue and without sufficient gas to even reach the islands. He floated around for nine days. The navy never found him. It ended up by Rodgers finding the navy. Then Rodgers was brought to Washington over his own protest by the navy for propaganda purposes; and although physically unsuitable for flying, due to his eyes, he was allowed to keep on flying. This resulted in this gallant officer’s death in Philadelphia, in a stall of his plane.
The Air Mail Service
THE United States air mail service has been in operation for nine years, and lias established a world record for reliability and efficiency. The flying time from coast to coast is twenty-nine hours and some minutes, taken one day with another. Some days it is as low as twenty-six hours.
A record day’s delivery of airplane mail from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City was 1,200 pounds, consisting of 47,000 pieces. There is air mail service now from almost any important city ofl
the United States to almost any point in Sweden. lar to those they flew. These came from Ger-Between New York and Britain the mail is car- many and from Argentina, in which latter coun-i tied by steamer, but goes all the rest of the way . try there is considerable progress in aviation being made at this time.
by plane.
On April 27 of this year an air mail was dispatched from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Wiseman, Alaska, with letters which under former methods would not have reached their destination until the middle of July. As it was, they went through in one day.
Had the government retained and added to its air mail service a passenger and express service, the United States would by this time be far ahead in aviation of where it is now. But the government follows the principle that Big Business should own everything and the people nothing, and with few exceptions private companies are today carrying Uncle Sain’s mail through the air.
Luxurious Airplanes Abroad
IRPLANES abroad are getting larger and larger and more and more luxurious. The newer cars carry twenty to twenty-five passengers, and are equipped as dining-cars. Collapsible tables are fixed in front of each seat. There are toilet accommodations, wicker armchairs, wireless telephones, etc.
Starting from London it is less than three hours to Paris, five hours to Switzerland, eight hours to Berlin, and twelve hours to Vienna. Even Moscow is only thirty-six hours away. The charges are about fifty percent per mile more than the railway fares, but the saving in hotel bills and sleeping-car and dining-car accommodations makes the net cost about one thing.
Not an airplane line in Europe is making more than fifty percent of its expenses, and it is taken as a matter of course that the governments will help; and they do help, as do also the cities reached, and in addition public-spirited citizens of means also render assistance to keep the lines going.
In the United States Henry Ford has been operating an airplane freight line between Detroit and Chicago for two and one-half years. At present he is conducting experiments on a grand scale looking to the early opening of passenger traffic on a wholesale basis. Further particulars later.
The flights of Lindbergh and Chamberlin led io cabled requests for quotations on planes sirni-
Exploration and other Uses
HpHE airplane is par excellent the modem method of exploration and is being much used for that purpose throughout Alaska and British North America. Photographs are taken of unexplored lands, and in th? hands of experts result in perfect maps instead of wild guesses and hearsays.
In Alaska th§ lakes are being located which may some time be utilized as sources of waterpower. In the vicinity of Hudson Bay and Hudson Straits the question is being determined whether or not they afford a satisfactory outlet for the grain of western Canada, enroute to Europe.
Twenty miles from the island of Niihau, Hawaii, is the Kaulu rock, the top of an old crater, presenting sheer cliffs on all sides. An aviator flew over the rock, and took photographs which enabled lighthouse experts to determine the best place to attempt a landing and place a beacon.
Airplanes have been used for writing signs on the sky, for dusting cotton with calcium arsenate so as to check the spread of the boll weevil, for carrying food to men marooned on Pike’s Peak and other mountain tops, for taking photographs of estates and of Death Valley and of all cities and of fires and other events of public interest.
Lieutenant Alford Williams, of the United States Navy, commutes daily between New York and Washington. Amsterdam sends freshly picked flowers to Berlin every morning by airplane. Off Los Angeles eight aviators have been caught smuggling foreigners into the United States.
In many cities airplanes offer sight-seeing flights, sometimes for very small sums. In New, York City a thirty-mile flight costs only $5, whereas the same trip by taxicab would cost' $6.10. At Princeton, the students forbidden to own automobiles have taken to the air. Above Berlin a double marriage ceremony took place in an airplane hired for the occasion.
The United Cigar Stores have a giant Sikorsky airplane stocked with tobacco, safety razors, cameras, chewing gums and candies which flies from place to place, and is widely advertised as to time of arrival. It is attracting considerable attention wherever it stops.
The new French liner "He de France” is so designed that passengers who are in a hurry to land can be catapulted in seaplanes when off the Grand Banks, thus cutting two days off their time on shipboard.
It is expected that within a very few years most of the gold will be taken out of South Africa by airplane, as its transportation, by that means will be $500,000 a year cheaper than by ’rail and water. South Africa is an ideal country for flying purposes. The climate is practically perfect.
Projected Airplane Flights and Routes
AS IS well known, several fliers are enroute around the world, one of them a young woman. A flight is contemplated between San Francisco and Australia, via Honolulu, 2,407 miles; Pago-Pago, 2,614 miles; Suva, Fiji, 792 miles; and Sydney, 2,003 miles. .
In the West Indies the West Indian Aerial Express will carry passengers, mail and express between San Juan, Porto Rico; Santo Domingo; Port Au Prince, Haiti; and Santiago, Cuba. It expects to begin operation this year.
In the United States the Banking Service Company expects to operate lines between New York and Chicago and between New York and HMiami. The Ford Motor Company has plans and specifications for a 100-passenger aerial Pullman which is expected to make its first flight some time this fall.
An Italian aviator is constructing a giant plane capable of operating between Rome and Boston, via Lisbon, Azores and Newfoundland, on a forty-eight-hour schedule. The ship will carry fifteen passengers besides the crew, and expects to make its initial trip this year.
The Germans, present kings of the air, are opening a regular air service between Berlin and Peking, 6,250 miles. Making one flight a day the trial trip was made in ten days, as against seventeen days by rail and six weeks by steamship. It is believed that by flying day and night the trip can be made in three days.
The Hamburg-American line hopes to inaugurate a series of regular trans-Atlantic planes between Hamburg and New York, beginning ©peration next spring. The planes, which will accommodate 170 persons, Will be fitted with ten motors of 1,000 horse-power each, capable <rf a speed of 200 miles an hour. Including two intermediate landings, it is expected that the entire .trip will not require more than twenty-four hours.
At Friedrichshafen, Germany, Dornier is building a huge flying boat, made entirely ol metal, which will carry 100 passengers. 'The hulls are built with ribs, braces and partitions, forming water-tight bulkheads. The thought is that if forced to descend it can remain afloat until help comes.
Commander Byrd and Arctic explorer Vilh-jalmur Stefansson both, believe that the popular route between the East and West will ultimately be over the Arctic ocean. Several aviators, Amundsen and his companions, and Wilkins, forced down on the ice hundreds of miles from land, were able to make repairs and fly back to safety.
Flying at Night
A LTHOUGH Germany has one night mail line, yet night flying has become more developed in the United States than elsewhere. This night flying is between Chicago and Cheyenne, a distance of a thousand miles, and also between New York and Chicago, another thousand.
By the close of this year seven thousand miles of airways will have been lighted for night flying, including besides the main aerial highway between New York and San Francisco, the 1,195 mile airway between Chicago and Dallas, one between St. Louis and San Antonio, and one between Dayton and New York, via Washington.
There is considerable pleasure flying over Berlin at night, also over London. In the latter place complaints have been made that citizens have been kept awake at night by the humming of the motors, but now that the French have discovered a way of silencing airplane motors the objection will no doubt be overruled.
For night flying over Berlin the planes use magnesium lights on the outer ends of the planes, which illuminate the ground brightly. The airport at Berlin, Tempelhof Field, where fifty airplanes a day arrive and leave, is the old parade ground where the Kaiser used to ’dress up in his glittering uniforms and hold his great parades. Now nobody pays aay. mors st® tention to the Kaiser than, they do to a proclamation by the Pope.
Items in Airplane Design
IN GERMANY and in the United States the school children are encouraged to participate in the construction of model airplanes. It is expected that the results will be beneficial both to the children themselves and to aviation in general. In America the winners in each of twenty events will go to Memphis, Tenn., to compete for the national championship.
The Guggenheim wind tunnel is a building 110 feet long, 55 feet wide, with an eight-blade aluminum propeller at one end driven by a 300 horse-power motor. This creates in the tunnel a wind speed of 100 miles an hour, and enables an analytical study of the behavior of different kinds of planes under approximately actual flying conditions. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other aeronautical schools have similar wind tunnels.
The engines of today are believed to be nearly perfect. Some of them have been run continuously for a hundred hours, enough to drive an airplane a third of the distance around the earth. Propellers are also believed to be very nearly perfect.
The use of fabrics in airplane construction is giving way to metal. It has been found difficult to get the tension of fabrics just right. If too tight, there is a strain on the framework of the plane. If too loose, the plane does not work satisfactorily. The proper loading of a plane is a matter requiring excellent judgment and experience.
As an illustration of the kind of work that is done in making aviation safe for the public we quote the following from that excellent British periodical, The Children’s Newspaper:
On a wide, treeless plain in the Eastern United States a number of men in uniform stood watching with glasses the speck of an aeroplane which was racing in the sky. The men -were officers of the United States Air Service; and the plane was being flown by one of their pilots in a test which, for coolly calculated daring, has never been surpassed. ... It was not to leap with a parachute from an aeroplane, for that is part of the training of U. S. Pilots, though when they do it another aeronaut is left to guide the plane. This man had gone up alone. He had volunteered for the task in order to detect a mysterious weakness in the wings of this type of plane, the cause of which no other experiment had been sufficient to disclose. His task wa to go up in tfee plane and bring it down so steeply that the wings would give wy under the strain while he watched them giving, so that he could see the cause. What he saw, calm-eyed and watchful, as he held the plane in one hand and his life in the other, was that in diving the balancing planes began to flutter. This flutter communicated itself to the main planes and set up strains sufficient to cause them to buckle in mid-air. He saved his own life by leaping with his parachute as the planes broke. He will save that of others by the facts which he obsened; for they will lead to a proper strengthening of the parts.
The new helicopter of Don Juan de La Cierva,-previously mentioned in T7ie Golden Age, has shown that it can arise vertically for 1,000 feet and then swoop down and rise again. But the autogyro, as it is called, has not yet proven practicable for flight.
Safe Flying aid Landing
S IN the operation of a bicycle or automobile, some persons learn aviation much more quickly than others. A woman recently taken on as an aviation pupil was reported to have developed the '"'bird sense” in twenty minutes; and yet some cannot learn it at all.
After an airplane is under way, and the controls set, the machine will keep on flying until the gasoline gives out. In one instance in the World War a plane landed safely with both airmen strapped to their seats. A post mortem examination proved that both of them had been dead for an hour.
The maintenance of a true course has been greatly assisted by radio. In the flights from San Francisco to Hawaii, so long as the plane is on its true course it receives a steady stream of the letter T in its radio. If it veers to the left or right it gets a stream of the 'etter A or the letter N, as the ease may be. A recent improvement on this is a tiny electric light on the instrument board, which burns brightly or dimly, as the-machine is on the right track or off from it.
Without the radio, flying in a fog would be impossible, and is almost impossible anyway; yet planes have been guided into the airport at Croydon, England, in the thickest of fogs, entirely by radio direction.
Lindbergh ascribed his ability to maintain easily a true course from New York to Paris t@ the earth inductor compass, an instrument developed by the United States Bureau of Standards.
A recent device, developed by the Army Air Service, is a recording compass for airplanes which, automatically makes a permanent record of every shift in an airplane’s course, even if it executes a figure eight.
The altimeter enables an aviator to know the proximity of objects in the path of his progress. A propeller-reversing device, which begins to operate the moment an airplane lands, is expected to work satisfactorily and will enable airplanes to come to a dead stop within a few yards.
The weather, greatest of all problems, is being studied now as never before. At McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, a toy balloon rises every morning to a height of seven or eight miles above the earth. There it bursts and a tiny parachute brings safely to earth a meteorgraph containing a full record of the temperature, humidity and air pressure of the upper air. Gradually a very complete record is being made of conditions as they exist at all seasons, and this is being studied closely.
fn Case of Accident
1NT A science as new as aeronautics accidents are inevitable, although Germany has been singularly free from them. But the airplane® is a dangerous toy to the inexperienced, and dangerous enough to anybody. In the British air service there is an average of one death a week. In the United States, as a whole, there were 508 crashes in three years’ time.
Late in the summer of 1927 the engine of a Curtiss biplane burst while the plane, containing three persons, was 5,000 feet In the air. As the gasoline flamed out of the broken engine the pilot dodged the flame by going into a sideslip until witliin 100 feet of the ground, when he straightened the plane and made a perfect landing with nobody even hurt.
A French inventor has a device which, in such an emergency, automatically closes the gasoline outlet, cuts the spark, and by means of compressed air throws great jets of fire-extinguishing chemicals all over the machine. Another inventor has designed a plane which, in such an emergency, can be broken in half, allowing the engine to fall while the balance of the machine becomes a parachute for the safety of its occu
pant, an invention which sounds rather impractical. ,
If anything serious happens while in the air, the only hope of the occupants of the plan® 1* in parachutes; and when far out over the ocean a parachute would only postpone death for a few minutes. Frequently the life of a flier depends on the exact folding of his parachute. Every fold must be exactly right, so that when the string is pulled the parachute will open perfectly. The parachute, strapped to the airman’s back, is not opened until the airman is free from the plane. Then he gives one pull of a string over his left shotilder; and if the parachute has been properly folded it opens in about two seconds. A parachute is about twenty-five feet in diameter. The best ones are made of silk. They can be guided enough to steer away from a river or a small lake.
Up to 1923 the scientists had it figured out that it would be useless to leap from an airplane travelling 100 or more miles an hour, as the shock would break the bones of the traveler; and then a young French woman, Mlle. Collin, made the jump and reported that her only sensation was that of being suddenly but gently suspended in the sky as her parachute opened and she floated safely down to earth.
It is quite practical to deliver mail and express by parachute. Articles can also be picked up by using a lead line which grapples another to which the package is attached.
By means of a hand generator a disabled seaplane drifting at sea can now broadcast an appeal for help. A set of quartz crystals enables it to transmit a steady signal on one of several different wave lengths.
Safety for Earth Dwellers
EFORE long, if aviation continues to grow as at present, we shall have to give some thought to those that still dwell on the earth. In the heart of Paris, just to show that he could do it, an airman suddenly swooped down and landed safely on the Place des Quinconces, among wheeled traffic and pedestrians, without occasioning any damage. But he was arrested, and he should have been.
In the same city a military airplane fell and tore a big hole in the roof of a house, and caused injuries to two pedestrians. There will be many more accidents of this nature shortly, in the nature of things.
Pilotless planes, radio governed, are now an actuality. Airplane silencers are also an actuality. Poison gases of incredible lethalness are also an actuality, and so is night flying. Well! Imagine yourself safe in bed on a dark, rainy night, and some other fellow steering a silent, poison-laden, death-dealing airplane straight toward your bedroom window! Would it not make you turn uneasily in your bed if you knew he was going to make a straight shot!
Airports and Airdromes
THERE are “in the United States 3,608 landing fields, of which 2,782 are emergency, 226 commercial, 310 municipal, 102 army, 40 navy, 66 postal; and there are 103 seaplane stations.
Chicago is planning a new postoffice. The roof will have a landing space 320 feet wide by 800 feet long for mail planes. New York has no airport as yet; but public sentiment is demanding that Governor’s Island, which now lies in the center of the city, and which once belonged to the city, should be used for that purpose, and not for an army prison, as now.
The Armstrong seadrome is still being urged as a probable solution of bridging the gap between here and Europe. Huge platforms, standing ninety feet out of the water, and supported by stilts which go far down into the water, are the basis of the plan.
In a storm there is little horizontal movement of the water. The body of water itself goes only up and down. At a slight distance under the surface there is hardly any movement at all. The supports of the stilts will be deep down in the under water, and the landing platform far above the tops of the waves.
Models of the Armstrong device have behaved perfectly; and a large-sized test model, with a platform 150 feet square, is now being given an ocean test. If the seadrome does what is hoped for it, the time will come when there will be seadromes a hundred miles or less apart over all the ocean air routes of the world. The world has just begun to live.
Dirigibles Still Have Friends
THE first balloon was sent up by the Montgolfiers June 5,1783, and rising to the height ®f a mile and a half surely was a great source ®f astonishment to the natives of the French village where the sons of the paper-maker tried rat their successful experiment
Balloons have made some remarkable journeys. Captain Spelterini, king of the air, has made 570 ascensions, and taken up 1,237 passengers, all of whom came safely back to earth. He is 74, and still a balloonist.
On the morning of August 30th, 1927, A. Leo Stevens, of Englewood, N. J., landed 350 miles away from home, in the Adirondacks, in a balloon so small that he could and did carry the whole outfit on his back on his way from the landing field to the railway station. •
A dirigible is a balloon of improved shape, which can be steex’ed and which is provided with sources of power other than drifting winds. In 1919 the British dirigible R-34 flew from Scotland to Mineola, N. Y., 3,130 miles in 108 hours, 12 minutes, and returned to England in 74 hours, 56 minutes.
In 1924 the ZR-3, now the Los Angeles, flew from Friedrichshafen, Germany, to Lakehurst, N. J., 5,066 miles, in 81 hours, 17 minutes. It takes 2,400,000 cubic feet of helium to float the Los Angeles.
The United States is building a new dirigible of 6,500,000 cubic feet gas capacity (nearly three times the size of the Los Angeles). It will be capable of carrying five airplanes and a crew of forty-five officers and men, at a speed of eighty miles an hour.
At the Zeppelin factory in Germany the LZ-127 is now in course of construction. When completed it will circumnavigate the globe in three or four hops, and then settle down to steady service between Spain and South America. It will carry 100 passengers, crew, luggage and mails. Eight large compartments will be fitted with every luxury.
The gas which will be used for fuel is less inflammable than gasoline, and therefore puts no additional weight on the ship. The supporting gas will be helium, thus entirely eliminating the danger of explosion. The new framework will be constructed of duraluminum with a tensile strength twenty percent higher than that heretofore used.
Edsel Ford, who has given much attention lately to aviation subjects, has expressed the opinion that the ultimate solution will be that dirigibles will be chiefly used for traversing the longer main routes of travel in all weathers, while the airplanes will be used as feeders. Perhaps he is- right.
Disease and Early Grave via the Modern Kitchen
By William Held, M, D., Director of the V. 8. Health Deague,
WITH the information contained in this article the'intelligent reader should be able to draw his own conclusions. If he, after reading the facts presented herein, is set to thinking and perhaps to do some investigating on his own account, there is hope that in time and with the general dissemination of knowledge some action will follow which may set the stone orolling that in its onward move will crush the powers which now, to the great detriment of the people, disregard and conceal most vital facts.
During the month of February of this year at a Parent-Teachers Association banquet in Kansas City, Kansas, more than 150 persons who had partaken of the food served at the banquet, became siek. The food had been prepared and was allowed to stand in aluminum ware.
Dr. C. T. Betts, of Toledo, Ohio, who furnished much of the data used here, in the interest of public health and on the basis of much investigation and research conducted by him, urged that the authorities direct their inquiries, not only toward bacterial, but also to mineral poisoning; namely, to the investigation of the aluminum chemistry. He offered to deposit the sum of $500 to defray the expense of another dinner, to be cooked again in aluminum dishes, and to forfeit the money if again 150 persons were not poisoned. Apparently the doctor failed; his offer was not accepted.
If, after presentation of Die evidence, the reader still inclines to disbelieve any other but his own experience, the following little experiment is suggested: In a clean aluminum dish boil some water for half an hour; do the same with an equal quantity of water placed in a porcelain dish. Pour each specimen, after having boiled it, into separate clean glasses, allow to stand for half an hour. Hold the two specimens against a light, and observe the clearness of the water boiled in the porcelain and the precipitate in the water of the aluminum dish. The white precipitate you will see, is aluminum hydroxide, a chemical extensively used in the treament o£ stomach diseases, such as dyspepsia, ga-s, belching, pain, ulcers and intestinal ills.
Upon the time you allow the water to boil and to stand in aluminum dishes depends the amount of aluminum hydroxide you produce. If you cook food in aluminum dishes, you produce vanous aluminum compounds, I?or instance, ® you cook eggs, you manufaeture the drug known as aluminum phosphate; if salted meat, alumi-riurn chloride; and if you boil alkaline foods you will produce various aluminum compounds, always depending on what kind of food you prepare in aluminum ware.
If you are taking some aluminum compound as a medical prescribed by your physician for some ailment for which such drug is indicated and besides also eat food prepared in aluminum dishes, you obviously ingest more than your share of aluminum drags. But if you are not taking aluminum in medicinal doses under doctor’s direction, but eat food prepared in alumi-* num dishes, then you get the aluminum drag, whether you need it or not. And the doses you get and the kind of aluminum compound you eat, are without rhyme or reason, because there is no way of knowing dose or kind of compound when you eat several meals a day, carrying all kinds of aluminum compounds with them.
It has already been stated that when salted meat is boiled or prepared in aluminum dishes (even though no water is used) the compound of sodium of aluminum is produced. To understand the meaning of this I quote from Dr. Herbert Snow, who, as early as October 17, 1912, in an article published in the Daily News of Chicago, with reference to aluminum chloride, stated as follows: , that powerful narcotie
acid poison had obviously been generated by the chemical action of the common salt in the bacon upon the metal surface.” Dr. Snow mads this statement after having observed the mentioned drug in a mass of fat left over after bacon had been fried in an aluminum dish.
We have the word of eminent chemists to the effect that aluminum hydroxide, that is the drug you take into your stomach when you drink water that has been boiled or was standing in aluminum containers, attacks the gastric juice in your stomach. In order to digest your food properly you must have normal gastric juice. But after aluminum hydroxide has mixed with, the digestive fluids of the stomach it neutralizes and absorbs the same, which is just like robbing you of this important digestive ferment.
Nature always tries to supply necessary demands ; and so, when your gastric juice is acted on by the aluminum drug, nature attempts to make MORE gastric juice, working overtime, as it were. But finally, since you keep on loading aluminum hydroxide into your stomach, this 'drug wins the battle and remains as a poison in the, stomach.
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This opinion was also expressed by Dr. Victor V. Vaughn, once dean of the Medical Department of the University of Michigan. Before the Federal Trade Commission, Washington, I).. C., he said: “This conclusion is that salts of aluminum are harmful in the human body,” a conclusion he had pronounced before a Senate Committee.
Dr. H. A. McGuigan, talking of the effects of aluminum before the Federal Trade Commission in Docket Case 540, Washington, D. C., stated:
When taken internally, the action is due to chemical local action on the stomach and intestines, the acid liberated upon the union of metal and protein penetrating to the tissues with an astringent effect. The local reactions are loss of appetite, pain and discomfort, nausea, vomiting, purging, congestion, hemorrhages resulting from irritant and corrosive action. Ulcers may result from bacterial action on dead tissue.
This opinion, which was given under oath, translated into the language of the laity means that after the aluminum compounds have raised havoc with the stomach and have reduced the resisting and fighting power of the parts, bacteria, which are always present but which could not harm the healthy organs, are now free to do their destructive work on the unprotected tissue.
Assuming that the reader is a very careful person and will carefully weigh all the pros and cons before deciding to throw into the scrap pile the shining aluminum ware that now adorns his kitchen, we must present a little more evidence.
Continuing our inquiry we learn that Harry Gideon Wells, Professor of Pathology in the University of Chicago, had something to say concerning the effects of aluminum compounds on red blood corpuscles. He said: ’
Aluminum compounds in solution, may pass into the blood stream from any pari of the intestinal tract, from moutJrito anus. The moment such compound has passed the wall of the intestines beyond the surface and entered the blood-vessels of the intestinal wall., it will come in contact with the red blood cells and cause these corpuscles to aggregate or clump and have opportunity to produce this injurious effect exactly the same as if the aluminum compound had been injected into the blood stream directly. The tendency to aggregate is a serious matter since the aggregated corpuscles become more fragile, break up, and lead to anemia or the reduction of the number of red blood corpuscles. It is possible for all the poison that is taken by mouth to be recovered in the discharges from the bowel and yet produce evidence of poison in remote parts of the body. (Italics mine.—■ Held.)
While treating patients for anemia the writer was in some cases chagrined and at a loss to understand the slow improvement by these patients and again to find others relapsing after some headway had been made. Noticing that other members of the patient’s family, who were also anemic, responded better to the treatment, led to inquiry; and it was revealed that these patients ate most of their meals in restaurants (where at that time aluminum dishes were seldom used), while the “stay at home” patients ate all meals in the house, where all food was prepared in aluminum containers. When these dishes were discarded, progress in the patient’s condition became satisfactory, and recovery finally resulted.
Others have made the observation that patients complaining of various gastric and intestinal disorders recovered without any other treatment except the discontinuance of aluminum ware for six to eight weeks. Of course, where serious disease had developed, as for instance cancer, no improvement followed the discontinuance of aluminum ware.
Amongst those who condemn the use of aluminum compounds in foods are Dr. Albert P. Matthews, professor of bio-chemistry in the College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati; William J. Gies, professor of biological chemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University; Dr. A. S. Loevenhart, professor of pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Phil. E. Hawk and Dr. Clarence A. Smith, of Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia ; Dr. Arnold K. Balls, of the University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Fred A. Hammett, of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy at Philadelphia; and many more.
Opposed to the views expressed by these and many other scientists in the aluminum controversy, is the opinion of the spokesman for the medical union and the propaganda agents for the aluminum industry. Many thousand physicians have not given the matter the consideration and thought which in the interest of their patients it deserves. _
Some have allowed themselves to be influenced by the statements of the ever watchful advertising agents of the medical union just as laymen rely ©n the often absolutely incorrect opinion and advice of journalist doctors. I believe that most doctors, were they correctly informed, would without further loss of time acquaint their patients with the subject and call their attention to the risk they run while continuing to eat food prepared in aluminum ware.
Is it not strange that some newspapers that failed "to play up” the poisoning affair of the 150 persons, mentioned before, shortly after the publicity given the matter by other papers, contained page-long advertisements of aluminum kitchen-ware? It is strange how these coincidences do happen.
Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Brazil prohibit the use of aluminum compounds in food stuff, including alum in baking powder. It will hardly be doubted that the named countries are progressive and have at their command the service of expert chemists, pathologists and medics who, no doubt, were consulted before the enactment of these laws which aim to protect and preserve the people’s health.
What is the reason that in our own America, with its great aluminum industry, which sold o\ er one hundred million dollars "worth of aluminum in 1926, aluminum compounds in food stuff is permitted; what is the reason that all the protest of men who know the facts of aluminum poisoning, that all their warnings fall •upon deaf ears; that nothing has been done to stay the death-d°aling effect of aluminum?
“But,” I imagine the reader asks, “is there any other evidence to show that disease is really connected with the use of aluminum kitchenware?” and I prepare to answer. Statistics are dry reading, but they compel attention. In 1911 aluminum for cooking utensils was very little known. In 1923 the yearly output "was $41,000,000.00, and since then the annual sales have reached the hundred-million-dollar mark.
In 1911 one would hear of an aged man or w man who here and there died of cancer. Since aluminum has become a household word, or a kitchen byword, there has been a tremendous increase in diseases of the stomach and intestines, of every kind. That increase was proportionate with the increase in the sale of aluminum kitchenware.
If you can reconcile it with your logic and sound reasoning power yob. may violate your better judgment and put this pro-rata rise, this keeping step of disease and aluminum use, to mere coincident. But if you do so, you should also not pay attention to a sudden increase in any particular disease to an epidemic and not seek for reasons of such occurrences. You must then be consistent and put aU such matters to the credit of coincident.
At the present time, statistics inform us, that one out of every five adult deaths in the United States is due to cancer. That is an increase of 100% per thousand since the use of aluminum ware became general. When did we hear of cancer patients who are yet in their teens, as we do now, before the advent of aluminum kitchenware?
Is it not a very telling condition that aluminum hydroxide increases the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach and is it not like the “writing on the wall” that even/ cancer patient has first an acidosis ? In other words, cancer is always preceded by the very condition which users of aluminum compounds produce in their system; namely, acidosis.
Pages could be written were one to attempt to quote the opinions of those who have gone on record for condemning aluminum in food stuff. But what would be the use? He who after the presentation of the above facts is not on the road to align himself with the anti-aluminum people, I fear, is beyond reasoning power.
When research workers, investigators who are trained in their particular branch, representative scientists, state their findings, should it not carry much more weight than the contradictions of those who shout the loudest, yet have neither research, knowledge nor investigation to base their claims on? Should the statement of anyone who directly or indirectly is interested in the aluminum industry, be allowed to outweigh the opinion of honest, unbiased and learned scientists?
The deniers and decriers of the aluminum opposition must have a great deal of confidence in the ignorance of the masses that they challenge the opinion of the scientific world. As long as the mob is prevented from learning the real truth, business will be good for the aluminum industry and those who hitch their carts to it. It is the mob, the masses that pay, as the countless sick, invalid and dying patients
Xhroughout the- land and their bereaved ones mination in their respective quarters to aban-prove. don profit for the greater thing, the nation’s
May these lines awaken conscience and deter- health.
Sundry and Divers Items
With Neatness and Dispatch
THE St. Louis Times of July 25th put a lot into a few words when it said, "Judge Rutherford of the International Bible Students Association is an eloquent speaker with a rare radio voice. He talked yesterday by the KSD route. His speech was remarkable in that he took off more skins of more people at one time than any orator of modern days. He disposed of chain stores, politicians, organized religions and the doctors with what might be called neatness and dispatch.”
What Else Could He Expect
A DISPATCH from Boston says: "The Right Reverend Joseph G. Anderson, 62, since 1909 auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Boston, died today at his home a few hours after receiving by cable a special blessing of Pope Pius XI.” Here is hoping that Mr. Ratti never blesses us. If he does we a^e goners, sure enough. It seems that nobody can survive that blessing.
The Blessing of Old Glory
TIE account of the blessing of the Old Glory plane, which was lost at sea with all on board, reads: “The Vatican, on learning of the blessing of Old Glory by Father Mullen, Old Orchard, expressed great satisfaction that a religious ceremony had preceded such a momentous undertaking as the airflight from America to Rome. The Pope added that he hoped the daring enterprise would be successful, thus offering him an opportunity to impart the Apostolic-benediction to the intrepid aviators." Poor fellows! They were effectively killed without it.
The Princess Lowenstein’s Plane
FROM the Baltimore 'American we take the following account of the blessing of the Princess Lowenstein’s plane: “The plane was sent on its way with the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church, of which Princess Lowenstein SVertheim is a devout member. The two pilots and their passengers grouped themselves under the spreading wings of the St. Raphael; and as the Archbishop of Cardiff approached they fell to their knees. The priest with upraised hands called on heaven’s blessings upon this hazardous undertaking and sprinkled holy water on the ship." That settled it. The plane then sailed away; and all on board were lost, as a matter of course.
Price of Masses Doubled
THE Bishop of Madrid has just doubled the price of masses. Well! Why not? It is all clear profit, even if every last cent of it is money-obtained under false pretense; and the rule of Big Business today is to make as big a profit as you can, regardless of the injury to your fellow man. Moreover, the time to charge high prices for masses is now; for in a little while the people will wake up to the fact that the whole thing is a swindle and then they will stop paying altogether, and there will be nothing left for the clergy to do but to go to work the same as anybody else. Hurrah for high-priced masses I Get it while you can.
Turn About is Fair Play
AS EVERYBODY knows, the International
Bible Students Association pays its respects impartially to all ecclesiastical and religious associations of any and every sort, without fear and without favor. On August 24 last it received a telegraphic order for two copies of Judge J. F. Rutherford’s address, delivered in Toronto, July 24,1927. The telegram stated that the copies were desired immediately. Investigation showed that it came from an official of the National Council of Catholic men, Washington, D. C. Interviewed the next day the gentleman who sent it stated that he desired copies of the address to bring some of the questions raised therein before a convention of Catholic Societies in Detroit, Michigan, to be held during the week of August 28, 1927. He was very courteous, but would not discuss any questions. In a subsequent interview he claimed that the I. B. S. A. are encouraging the destruction of organized Christianity. He strongly resented statements to the effect that the Catholic system is a part of the Devil's organization. However, when proof was offered to him on this point, after a few asthma spells he quieted down sufficiently to listen to a brief outline of the divine plan, and finally took a Co >21/011 booklet, one of Judge Butherford’s lectures, which discusses these questions. We think it quite right that our Catholic friends should look into these charges, and the Protestants, too. The quicker they look and the closer they look, the better we are satisfied. The old systems of error must all go, and the truth and only the truth can be left to stay. Every system built on the eternal torture theory is a lie, no matter under what professedly holy name it sails. All these systems must pass away. They cannot endure the light of the truth. They may hate it, but the truth alone will prevail.
Good Situation Open
/J737? Golden Age has been requested by a J- large manufacturing institution to recommend good men or women for the following positions: Head bookkeeper, stenographer and assistant bookkeeper, manager advertising department, collector of accounts. Young men and women in the Truth who have to make some money for dependents might find these positions desirable. Saturday afternoons and Sundays could be devoted to canvassing with other members of the class. This is merely to assist some one who needs a place. Write us and we will refer your application to the manufacturer. The situations are in Iowa. Only competent persons who are willing to work will be recommended.
Blessed Are the Fearless
[Broadcast from Station WBBR, New York, by C. J. Woodworth]
’"The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.’’—Daniel 7:18.
OUR Lord Jesus Christ was the greatest Bible Student that ever lived. Throughout His boyhood and youth He listened every sabbath to the Scriptures, and in due time became the reader of the synagogue in which He worshipped. In His perfect mind He stored up everything He had read and waited until the due time might come when Me should understand it.
Over sixty years after Jesus' death he gave to ’John a Revelation which God had given unto Him, but there are still many things that wait to be revealed. But there was a time when a flood of truth was due to come to Jesus all at once, and it did come. That time v.as when Jesus reached the age of thirty and went down into 'Jordan to be baptized. Immediately the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw and understood things never before comprehended. And immediately He went apart by Himself into the wilderness forty days to study them. But the Devil was there, attending the Bible study and prayer meeting, as is his custom.
Kingdom of God Foreshadowed
WE CAN only conjecture what were the matters that passed before Jesus’ mind on that occasion, but we can be sure that they concerned the establishment of God’s kingdom in the earth, to take the place of Satan’s kingdom; and it would be fair to assume that prominently before His mind was the striking picture of this transfer which occurs in the book of Daniel.
Jesus could not have failed to recognize the fact that the great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream represented Satan’s empire. He knew that the head of gold was identified by Daniel as the Babylonian empire; he no doubt knew that the Medo-Persian empire was represented by the arms and breast of silver, and the Grecian empire by the belly and thighs of brass, and that He was then living in the days of the fourth or Roman empire, pictured in the image ' by the legs of iron.
The thing that would have interested Jesus most in the account would necessarily be the end of the story, that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and smote the image upon its feet and itself became a great mountain and filled the whole earth, and that thus was pictured what would happen in the latter days; that the God of heaven would set up a kingdom that should never be destroyed, that it should break in pieces and consume all the other kingdoms of earth, and that it should stand for ever. Our Lord Jesus must have identified Himself as associated in some way with that stone.
Ever Fearful, Satan Schemes
O DOUBT Satan recognized the thoughts that were flitting through Jesus’ mind. He 'did not wish his kingdom to be destroyed. He wished to retain it for ever, and so he sought to turn Jesus’ attention away from the Father’s plan. If Jesus would fall down and worship him, and kiss his toe as King Alphonso does when he visits the pope, he would give Jesus a sort of papal blessing; and forthwith Jesus would be the first pope and ruler of all.
Jesus saw through the whole empty scheme and promptly said to Satan: "Get thee behind me, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Luke 4: 8) Jesus saw that the kingdom would never be taken away from Satan except in God’s due time and way, and that there would inevitably be a time of trouble when the transfer would take place.
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