Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-11-13 | Page 4 | A Wonderful Vision

I A WONDERFUL VISION N'o man had greater y ision than Jules Verne, ihe famous French novel 1st, whose books have been a source of so much pleasure to younp, and old Writing in "Science and Invention." Prof. Home of New York says the Frenchman was ihe worlds greatest prophet and he proceeds to prove his assertion by the following references Every reader knows "Twenty Thousand Thou-sand League? Under the Sea" and its sequel "The Mysterious Island," with their romance of Captain Nemo and his submarine 'fherc were no submarines sub-marines when that tale began in 1870. The first successful one was developed b the American inventor Lake in 1S97. and only with the remarkable super submarines" constructed in the last year of the great war, have we really paralled Captain Nemo's boat. Similarly in "The Steam House," published In 1 SSI , the master planned an automobile such as our five ton au to trucks of todav and equalling In that first tale of the self-propelling carriage, car-riage, Verne depicted ordinary steam as his motive power; he had not con cehed the greater energy of the gas-driven gas-driven machine. Later, however, in hjfl "Master of the World" be uses gas and electricity as the sources of pow- j er of an automobile, giving it Just about the speed a hundred miles an hour, which our racers show in the daring contests of today. So. too. with the air-machine in' "Robur the Conqueror ' published in I 1886, Verne not only pictured the con-i quesi of the air, as it was to be ac-j complished some twenty years later, I he even foresaw the struggle between j the i wo great types, the "lighter than' air' and the "heavier ihan air," and I he awarded the triumph where the j great war has plated it. v'iih i he j "heavier" machine In the war we j saw. as his vision had seen, ihe un wieldv "dirigible " the Zepp-'lin prove aeM of little value compared to the I eaBily controlled plane." the Sopworth bomber and the Curtiss sea plane H In the aerial realm as in the sea H and land vehicles Verne developed his j H ideas with time. The air-machines in H Robur the Conqueror ' pale before i H the marvelous machine depicted in his 1 H later book "The Master of the World " j J Here the earlier hero, Robur,, reap H pears with an invention which travels equally in the air. on the land, on the i B seas, and under the seas We are just I H stumbling toward that development to-1 H day. The seaplane travels on the j H water or in the air. we have a new automobile which seeks the aid of H ? ngs. Last month our scientific pa- pers were talking of a practical water-automobile, water-automobile, or equal 6ca and land trav H eler. So step by step we arc overtak- ing the master. He is no ionger with us to point yet on and ever on.