Vehicles of the Air cury Into the SO foot diameters of a battleship's funnels. Fancy for a moment the disillusionment disillusion-ment to come when in some great conflict con-flict of the future a splendid up-to-date battleship fleet of the traditional order, or-der, with traditional admiral and traditional tra-ditional tactics, finds Itself beset In midseas by a couple of great, unar-mored. unar-mored. liner line hulls, englned to admit ad-mit of sreeds and steaming radii such as will permit them to pursue or run away from any armored craft yet built, and designed with clear and level decks for aeroplane launching. Conceive them provided with storage stor-age room for hundreds of demountable demount-able aeroplanes, with fuel, repair fa eilltlcs and explosives, and with housing hous-ing for a regiment or two of expert air navigators. tCopyrlght, by International Press Bureau.) fighting men on the faraway battle fronts. Already more than one great military mili-tary and naval captain has suffered disquieting visions of what will happen hap-pen when, maneuvering unopposed and unseen in the obscurity of the night, not merely one or a few, but veritable swarms of light aeroplanes, i In 20.000 lota, costing no more than single dreadnaught. commence trailing trail-ing asortments of high explosives at the end of 1.000 foot lengths of piano wire over cities and palaces an I through fleets and armies. Many authorities are Inclined to disparage dis-parage the flghtlr.g ability of the aero-1 aero-1 plane, basing their views on the fact , that It has been demonstrated exceed ; Ingly difficult to drop bombs with any 1 considerable accuracy from great heights. Hut from a slow moving , aeroplane flying very low It should be ' an easy matter to cast generous par i eels of picric acid or fulminate of tner- wlth a shotgun were to understand that If he le one of the flock that this one survivor might be able to annihilate him he would not place so much confidence In his shotgun." ' Particularly Interesting Is the relation rela-tion of navigation to warfare, and the subject obsesses many now that the governments are taking up the experiments ex-periments along scientific lines. This latest of man's Inventions probably will serve first In adding to the terrors ter-rors and then In laying the grim specter spec-ter of the centuries. A very few of the military authorities author-ities have pointed out that in the development de-velopment of the flying machine there Is placed, for the first time In history, In the hand of the weak anj strong combatants alike, a weapon capable of as effective and unpatentable direction di-rection aftlnst the kings, congresses, president sad diplomats who declare war as fe of direction against the upon retting guns that would destroy the daring aviator if he flew low enough to make accuracy possible In hitting a battleship, and they may say that if the aeroplane destroyer flies beyond the range of those guns he would not be able to drop a shell where it would do fU work. "They may forget, however, that the funnel of a great battleship offers a wide target, and that a perfect swarm of the little, destructive biplane gnat might be turned loose over a battleship battle-ship and some one of them might drop the shell In the funnel. Y'ou could construct a big fleet of these aeroplanes aero-planes for less than the cost of one battleship. "Carry the parallel still further. Suppose a bunter out after ducks In his comprehensive book on ve- kies of the air Victor IxiugheeJ. engineer en-gineer and student of aviation, em phaslzes a few points on the relation of the aeroplane to warfare that serve to bring out bis notion that the day is not far off when the expenditure 9t millions for dreadnaught battle-hfps battle-hfps will be unknown. The engineer believe many thing re possible with the aeroplane and rnmparei the aviator dropping destructive de-structive shells Into the vulnerable works of a modern battleship from Ms aerial position to bringing down lucks with a little shotgun. "If one aeroplane at a cost of. say. tT.00. does not destroy a battleship," ays Mr. 1wghed. "why. St) or 100 eight do the work. The West Point tod Anaif"' students may descant