24 



Chapter 



FLYING THE ATLANTIC 



R, 



^EGULAR and practical flight across the Atlantic is only 

 a few years old but the general idea of navigating in the air is very 

 old indeed. The travel of human beings in the air began on both sides 

 of the Atlantic at about the time that the United States became a 

 nation. In those years France and the United States were in close 

 touch with each other and shared many ideas and enthusiasms; travel 

 through the air was one of them. The first flights by balloon were 

 made in France but the first American flights came only a few years 

 later. 



Americans were even more hopeful and enthusiastic about travel 

 by air than the French because they felt it might become of practical 

 and even national importance. Washington, Franklin, and many other 

 prominent Americans were interested in the early balloon flights be- 

 cause they were interested in all forms of transportation. Water trans- 

 portation had developed rapidly and the coasts, seaports, bays, rivers, 

 lakes of America were already full of ships, but transportation over 

 the land was in a very backward state. Roads were primitive, rough 

 and dangerous. Land travel was uncomfortable, painfully slow and 

 expensive. 



The original states had an enormous coastline and back of the 

 coastline lay a whole continent waiting for development. Better and 

 more rapid transportation was needed to knit the states together — it 

 might even be an important factor in determining whether the Amer- 



