THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1908. AN AGE OF MIRACLES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3002, 26 September 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1908. AN AGE OF MIRACLES.

The complete mastery of the air may not be achieved in the present generation, or even in the next, though 'he advance of technical science will probably effect a more rapid solution of the main initial problems of aerial navigation. But what can be said with absolute certainty is that the conquest ot the upper sphere has be gun. It is proceeding steadily vstep by step. The process will continue. The air will doubtless be made traversable for many useful and formidable purposps within the time of most of thoae who are now living; but not the present century, nor the ages to follow it, will sceYuiality in this or any other direction. Primitive man, with his raft, his dug-out, or his coracle, no doubt imagined himi self to be a very fine fellow. How j wonderful to him would have ap- [ peared the caravel 3 of Columbuß, ! which yet seem ho feeble to our sight! At a late time, men thought I that a mor p cunning and splendid I fabric of masts and sails had spelt | out almost the last word of maritime I progress. Then steam came, and ships turned into iron machines

riven by vapour. Yet only in our wn day the Indomitable on the one and, the Lusitania on the other, ave shown that startling and revoluionary developments, even in the lavigation of the sea'B surface, are til! possible. Motor cars, upon their irst introduction, wer« subjected to nuch sceptical ridicule. Yet autonobilism has gone on from speed to need. Its mechanism has become it once more potent and more subect to control. The motor car las transformed all the problems of and transport, and yet its beginnings night be described as a melancholy :rawl, 'tempered by total collapses. Vlore applicable still is the instance )f the submarine. Here also a dream if all the ages remain unfulfilled up :o a few years ago, and to the great majority of persons appeared to be unattainable. Mow the submarine has been brought to a point of 3fficiency which entitles us to say that it has achieved the conquest sf the underwaters. All views with regard to it have been revolutionised during the last half decade. When first introduced by France it was regarded as a useful part of the apparatus of shore defence. It was to creep about the coast, and to make short runs under the coming up frequently to breathe. In the early days of the submarine many gcientista and naval experts doubted whether even this limited programme could be carried out. » The actual developments of submarine navigation have far outstripped all original prophecy, and in the last few weeks a whole squadron of little warships, ingenious in their mechanism, and terrible in their destructive possibilites, and aLle to dive or reappear at will, have made a non-stop run of five hundred miles in length, from Dover to Cromarty. Again, we see the brilliant repetition of all human experience. Our aspirations are the index of our capacities. O-ir drearm are the foreshadowings of destiny. Never yet was real work wasted. No intense and strenuous effort was ever made in vain, even if the harvest did not immediately and directly spring from it. Above all, it is truu that in the vocabulary of scientific endeavour the word impossible does not exist. We live in an age of marvels, and we think our time is commonplace because wonders are so frequent. We complain that we belong to a prosaic period because mira:lss happen every day. If we kept our imagination sufficiently alert, we should realise that even to breathe and be alive in these latter days of scientific achievement is a priceless intellectual privilege. But just as we have !?vcom? used, to the telegraph and the Leleyhono, we take the Rontgen rsys as much for granted as though mankind had always been endowed with the physical faculty of seeing through stone walls and looking into the interior of solid objects. In the case 01 wireless telegraphy, for instance, we have seen bewildering developments. We learn that the Indomitable steamed from continent to continent and was never for a single hour out of communication with land. Aerial message were transmitted through over fifteen hundred miles of apace. This, surely, is a modern miracle if there ever was one; but most of us, dulled by custom to a sense of the remarkable, receive with lethargy the report of a fact nothing less than electrifying in its significance.