OCR Text |
Show ' FLYING ACROSS THE OCEAN. Walter Wellman, in his airship America, which is patterned somewhat after the Zeppelin dirigibles, left Atlantic City this morning morn-ing in an attempt to cross the Atlantic ocean, following the course of the trans-Atlantic liners. ' ' The venture is somewhat hazardous and will fail unless the con ditions arc extremely favorable, but eventually airships, in a more perfected stage, will accomplish that dream of the ages. Zeppelin has demonstrated that, under favorable conditions, an airship can make a distance of 300 or 400 miles, but that every added mile brings uncertainties. Sudden air currents have not been mastered and a gust of wand can bring the mighty craft down with a crash. But it is possible for Wellman to be exceptionally favored and for him to succeed, and, if he does we will all applaud, as one more victory in another new field of endeavor, will be added to the many achievements of Americans. We do not know what Columbus would have said, had the inhabitants inhab-itants of the West Indies possessed enough ingenuity and daring to have intercepted the bold navigator with a dirigible, but it is a certainty cer-tainty that his crew would have viewed the Indian as a monster from the under-world and they would have scanned the western horizon for signs of the end of things terrestrial. |