e other the pulling propeller.

For the present the great need is for landing-fields as near the heart
of most American cities as possible. There should be quick
transportation to the business section provided, as well as hangars
and mechanics. When that is done we may very well say that aerial
transportation for passengers and freight is an accomplished fact.

VIII

THE AIRPLANE'S BROTHER

At the end of 108 hours and 12 minutes of sustained flight, more than
four days, the British dirigible R-34 swung into Roosevelt Field, came
to anchor, and finished the first flight of the Atlantic by a
lighter-than-air airship. To the wondering throngs which went down
Long Island to see her huge gray bulk swinging lazily in the wind,
with men clinging in bunches, like centipedes, to her anchor ropes,
and her red, white, and blue-tipped rudder turning idly, she was more
than a great big balloon, but a forerunner of times to come. She had
come to us, a pioneer over the sea lanes which are to be thronged with
the swift dirigibles of the future plying their easy way from America
to Europe.

The performance of the R-34, undertaken in the line of duty, has
eclipsed all the previous records made by dirigibles and is, in fact,
a promise of bigger things to come. There was that Zeppelin, which
cruised for four days and nights down into German East Africa and out
again, carrying twenty-five tons of ammunition and medicine for the
Germans who were surrounded and obliged to surrender before help
arrived.

The R-34 started from East Fortune, Scotland, on Wednesday, July 2,
1919, at 2.48 o'clock in the morning, British summer time, and
arrived, after an adventurous voyage, at Mineola, Sunday, July 6, at
9.54 A.M., American summer time. She had clear sailing until she hit
the lower part of Nova Scotia on Saturday. Electrical storms, which
the dirigible rode out, and also heavy head winds, kept her from
making any progress, and used up the gasolene. About noon of Saturday
the gasolene situation became acute, and Major G.H. Scott, her
commander, sent a wireless message to the United States Navy
Department at Washington, asking for destroyers to stand by in the Bay
of Fundy in case the gasolene should run short and the airship get out
of control. Destroyers were immediately despatched, but in the next
few hours the weather improved, and the ship was able to continue on
her journey. It was feared, however, she might run out of fuel bef