ing machines thus equipped, were
ordered to attack eight German balloons. Six of the balloons were
destroyed.

But the very last word in aeronautical development is what might be
called, for want of a better term, an aerial submarine. I refer to
seaplanes carrying in clips beneath the fuselage specially constructed
18-inch torpedoes. In the under side of this type of torpedo is an
opening. When the torpedo is dropped into the sea the water, pouring
into this opening, sets the propelling mechanism in motion and the
projectile goes tearing away on its errand of destruction precisely as
though fired from the torpedo-tube of a submarine. It may be recalled
that some months ago the papers printed an account of a Turkish
transport, loaded with soldiers, having been torpedoed in the Sea of
Marmora, the accepted explanation being that a submarine had succeeded
in making its way through the Dardanelles. As a matter of fact, that
transport was sunk by a torpedo dropped from the air! The pilot of a
Short seaplane had winged his way over the Gallipoli Peninsula, had
sighted the troop-laden transport steaming across the Marmora Sea,
and, volplaning down until he was only twenty-five feet above the
water and a few hundred yards from the doomed vessel, had jerked the
lever which released the torpedo. As it struck the water its machinery
was automatically set going, something that looked like a giant cigar
went streaking through the waves ... there was a shattering
explosion, and when the smoke cleared away the transport had
disappeared. Whereupon the airman, his mission accomplished, flew back
to his base in the AEgean. There may be stranger developments of the
war than that, but if so I have not heard of them.

France is now (April, 1917) turning out between eight hundred and a
thousand completely equipped airplanes a month, but a considerable
proportion of these are for the use of her allies. I have asked many
persons who ought to know how many airplanes France has in commission,
and, though the replies varied considerably, I should say that she has
at present somewhere between five thousand and seven thousand machines
in or ready to take the air.[D]

* * * * *

Leaving Chalons in the gray dawn of a winter's morn, we fled southward
again, through Bar-le-Duc (the place, you know, where the jelly comes
from) the words "_Caves voutes_" chalked on the doors of those
buildings having vaulted cellars sh