SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP—-RENARD. 147 
fected ways of communication. If, on the contrary, there should be 
discovered in the solitudes of the Pacific an islet, in itself of little 
importance, it could be brought into direct communication with 
New York, Marseille, and Sidney, and enter immediately into the 
circle of mundane affairs. 
Aerial navigation combines the advantages of its older sisters and 
is free from their inconveniences. It can connect Paris and Rio de 
Janeiro as well as Madrid and St. Petersburg. It no more requires 
the preliminary construction of roads of communication than does 
maritime transportation. It creates direct bonds of communication 
without intermediary agencies, and to utilize it it is only necessary 
to have appropriate vehicles. Thanks to this means, all points on 
the globe may enjoy the privilege which has hitherto been reserved 
to the shores of the sea, and in a few years the atmosphere will 
certainly be the great medium for bringing people together just as 
the ocean has been for a long time in its more limited and less perfect 
fashion. 
EET, 
These general considerations are not mere digression from the ques- 
tion which we are considering to-day. We must not lose sight of 
them if we wish to estimate things clearly. Do we not often hear 
the remark: “Of what importance are dirigibles or aeroplanes? 
They do not travel as fast as railroad trains; they have much less 
carrying capacity than boats; would it not be worth while rather to 
perfect the time-honored land or maritime means of travel than to 
search for a new method of transportation ? ” 
If aerial navigation did not differ in its essential properties from 
these other modes of locomotion known from the most ancient times 
this presentation of the case would be entirely rational, but when 
men pursue so indefatigably the conquest of the air and the public 
follows its progress with such interest, it is not because they hope 
to discover in this way the means of possessing in a higher degree 
the qualities of speed and capacity desirable in any vehicle, it is be- 
cause of qualities found alone in aerial navigation. If this were 
not so the conquest of the air would still certainly be an important 
question, but it would not be worth all the efforts that it brings forth 
and the excited interest that it arouses. 
We can not actually realize what is before us, but there is to-day 
an idea latent in every mind that the investigation into aerial loco- 
motion is not a vain caprice of mankind, but springs from a deep 
and instinctive feeling that extraordinary changes are impending 
in the conditions of humanity. 
We must now go a step further into the detailed study of the 
qualities which we have enumerated and choose the most important. 
