in the early time of the
war, supplied by the navy. Moreover, the navy had work of its own to do
in the air. The business of coast defence and patrol, the convoy of
vessels--in short, all the office-work that would fall to an
Inspector-General of the Seven Seas had to be done by the navy. The
seaplane and the flying boat can come to rest on the surface of the sea,
but it is no secret that they are not always comfortable there, and
there were attached to the Naval Air Service certain special vessels,
constructed or adapted to be seaplane-carriers. The credit of defeating
Germany's submarine campaign belongs, in part at least, to the air
service, working in co-operation with the destroyers and a swarm of
smaller craft. In favourable weather submarines below the surface of the
water can sometimes be seen from the air, and the depth-charge, another
invention of the war, dropped by surface craft, is the means of their
destruction.

An occasional duty of aircraft may fitly be mentioned here. It is
sometimes desirable that a missionary should be deposited at a quiet
spot behind the enemy lines, and when he wishes to communicate with
those who sent him out it sometimes becomes necessary to supply him with
a basket of pigeons. When communication is interrupted on the troubled
surface of the earth, it can often be renewed in the air.

As the uses of aircraft multiplied, so did their designs, and where many
various tasks were performed, in the beginning of the war, by a single
type of machine, good in its day, there are now many types of machine,
each with special fitness for its own purpose. How far these
developments may yet go, no man can tell, and prophecy is idle; what is
certain is that many operations of war and peace which have never yet
been performed are within the reach of the aircraft that are now at our
disposal. A beleaguered city could be victualled. A force of a thousand
men, with rations and ammunition, could be landed, in a few hours, to
operate in the rear of an invading army. But the world is tired of war,
and the advances of the immediate future will rather be made in the
direction of peaceful traffic and peaceful communication.

The history of the war in the air is the history of the rapid progress
of an art and the great achievements of a service. In the nature of
things the progress of the art must claim a share in the record. If the
battle of Trafalgar had been fought only some ten short years after the