AIRSHIPS IN A.D. 2000.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 520, 29 May 1909, Page 13

AIRSHIPS IN A.D. 2000.

;\- —4——— •■ AMUSING FORECAST BY jffi! RUD.YARD . ;_•:-, .. KIPLING. ,-.',. ■.■..■.,,.. 'Mr.' Rudyard Kipling, who is a keen stud- . en£ of the possibilities of' aorial flight of the future, deals humorously in a new book with some'of'the conditions which ho imagines' will exist ninety years from to-day... This takes the form of an addition to bis successful work, "With the Night Mail,'': which has just been published in America. '; .The novelist, says the "New % York'Wbrld," pictures the time when the skies will be full of strange craft, wonderful-in the : daytime, but fearful at > night, darting about the heavr ens vyithlneir many lights like grim mon-sters-seeking some unknown prey." : The airships will speed through space at 260 > knots an hour, leaving an abyss in the air streaking behind like the wake from ■ the stern of a motor-boat: There will also be pilots well versed the signals of the skies. •As the lightships, with., their great eyes piercing tho darkness, keep vigil for. the ocean craft to-day, so will the'mark shins bijfh'in < the skins send.their warnings to the Stoppers of the air in the year 2000.' Journeys will be made safe by an' aorial board of control.'-;.- . '■.-, '.'>■-'■ ••.,•■'• ''~..■'.;■:..' - ' Hero is a sample of some of Kipling's weather buUejaris:— \ ~ ,>'v, ,''..•" --i ■'":"■ _ "The northern weather so far shows no signs of improvement. .. From all quarters come complaints of the unusual prevalence of sleet at the higher levels.'..Racing planes arid digs alike have : suffered ■' BeverelyH>he former from/unequal 'deposits' of half-frozen slush On their, vans, and the latter from lpaded bows'and'snow.cased'bodies. ' ~ . "As- a .the .northern and north-western'upper levels ally abandoned;, and the high'fliers'have returned to tho Hgnoblo security of :tho' three, five, 'and six', hundred foet'leyoto. v ;But',there .remain; a" fowTtiridnnnted sun huhlers'who,' in spite of frozen'stays and'ira-jammud ( c6iijicct-' lng rods, >trll haunt the blue empyrean." ':