574 CIVIL ENGINEERING 



Most of the great inventions and discoveries which have en- 

 nobled and advanced civilization have come from inspiration and 

 deep research, prompted by the exigencies of time and place, yet 

 but few efforts have been wholly successful, for, as the poets have 

 said: 



" God hath appointed wisdom the reward of study ! 

 'T is a well of living waters, 

 Whose inexhaustible bounties all might drink, 

 But few dig deep enough." 



Yet let no one fear that the field of research in any of the mental 

 or physical sciences will ever become exhausted, for the Source is 

 infinite. 



If all the wisdom of all the sages of mankind, in all ages from the 

 foundation of the world, were summed into a series and integrated 

 between the limits of zero and infinity, they could not compass the 

 unfathomable resources of the Almighty. "Can man by searching 

 find out God ? " 



To solve the problems confronting the present generation, it is 

 fundamental that the laws and properties governing mind and 

 matter be more fully understood and better applied. 



Much energy is wasted and many failures follow from the crude 

 and inexperienced methods adopted, which too often violate the 

 laws of nature and leave but a wreck to tell the story; for "few 

 dig deep enough." 



Some of these laws are so occult that man has not yet wholly 

 unraveled their mysteries. Has not the wisest of kings admitted: 

 "There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea. four 

 which I know not : The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a 

 serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; 

 and the way of a man with a maid." 



And do not these four things involve all the elements of the tech- 

 nological problem embodied in the transportation question of to- 

 day? aeronautics, dynamics, navigation, and psychology, trans- 

 portation in the three media of air, water, and land, as well as such 

 mental conceptions of their conditions and requirements as shall 

 render them all equally available; which state man has not yet 

 attained unto. There is therefore a large sphere still open in this 

 field for future research. 



It will be the main purpose of the writer, therefore, to outline 

 the elements which must be focused upon this particular phase 

 of economic transportation, having in view the attainment of the 

 best results. 



This attainment is conditioned upon something more than the 

 fundamental conception of the ideal or its mere graphical expres- 

 sion in the formal technology of the shop or the patent office. Its 



