Leading Akucles in the Reviews. 



511 



THE TUNAPLANE. 

 Pi.AY has a tendency to become as stereotyped as 

 work itself, and sportsmen are too conservative to 

 break any honourable tradition of their craft, even if 

 it means a bigger bag. The Badminton contains a 

 suggestion which shows that there is still an exception 

 to everv rule. Dr. Holder describes the invention of 

 Captain Farnsworlh, by which the wavy tuna of Santa 

 ("atalina may be lured more frequently to destruction. 

 The contrivance is our old friend the kite, which takes 

 the fisherman's line into the air and constitutes an 

 aerial le\er by which the bait may be made to go 

 through the natural flight of the flying fish : — 



Thi'i is the natural or mosl common prey of the tima ; and it 

 is hooked by the j.iw, or up through the body, and lashod or 

 sc«ed so lh.-it it will low naturally. This accomplished, the 

 lioatman starts his engine, the launch moves ahead, and the 

 lioatman gradually pays off line and gets his tunaplane up 

 into the air. 



Usually the line extends directly out astern ; but now we 

 perceive that it goes up into the air to the tunaplane, then drops 

 ti> the ocean, the reader will now see the resemblance to the 

 leroplane or hydroplane. Instead of fishing from one of them, 

 ind so being able to jerk the line along, a smaller contrivance 

 is conceiveil ; and the angler in the boat lifts the bait, using the 

 aerial tun-aplane as a pulley. 



This is, however, quite modest to Professor Lowe's 

 suggestion that an airship should be used : — 



Look at the advatnage over the present methods of tuna 

 fishing I I can lift you up half-a-mile, or any dist.ance, so that 

 you can cover the wafer .-ihoul .Santa Catalina and the tuna 

 ground at a glance. Instead of hunting for a school of fish, 

 you have merely to point them out ; and in a few moments I 

 will drop you near the school, and then my signal officer will go 

 up and keep you posted. 



It is evident that Englishmen are not the only 

 persons who take their pleasures seriously. 



realist follows instinct. " As a matter of fact, we most 

 of us live bv instinct, and find reasons to justify us as 

 soon as we conveniently can."' Mr. Benson goes on to 

 sav that Miss Austen is the first instance in the litera- 

 ture of the century of the realistic method bemg applied 

 to fiction, and the wonderful thing is that it was done 

 when the air was full of romance. But after JIiss 

 Austen the waters closed over the head of realism. At 

 last in Mr. George Moore, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Arnold 

 Bennett the new realism substantially develops, and 

 seems certain to transmute our native fiction. 



REALISM V. ROMANCE. 

 In the Coniliill for May Mr. .\. t'. Benson wnte> on 

 realism in fiction. He says : — 



The old inclination of tellers of tales, ol«ying no doubt a 

 similar inclination on the part of listeners, was to brush aside 

 all the vulgar, obvious and commonplace elements of life, to 

 represent character al ils highest and most heroic, and at the 

 same time, in order lo make the background darker and 

 blacker by way of contrast, to intensify the uglier and more 

 evil elements, that the nobler types of temperament might be 

 more radiantly and cmphaficaily outlined. 



That was what romance, developing and broadening oul of 

 epic, fried fo do. But imaginative writers in these later days 

 h.ave wearied of all that. They have begun to pi rceive that 

 life itself is far more wonderful and abuiidant than any arbitrary 

 reconstruction of it ; that the interest of life lies in the very fact 

 that we cannot, as the poet says, " remould it nearer to our 

 heart's desire "—but that it is an infinitely mysterious .and com- 

 plex ihinf^, which we can only criticise by studying ; and that 

 we must not \x afraid of looking closely at its baser sides, its 

 failures, its contradictions ; because it is in them that the veiy 

 secret of life lies. The imaginative spirit has grown lo perceive 

 thai truth is a fat more intercsling thing than any private fancy, 

 and it has learned, t."., that the imaginative faculty can be ju^t 

 as nobly Uird in schclinn and firm rcprcsenlation as it was u^d 

 in discarding ami remodelling. 



It is this then thai we call Realism. 



The romanier follows reason in his method. I he 



THE UNIVERSAL STANDARD MAP. 



The International Map of the \\'orld now being 

 brought out is described in the Edinburgh Review for 

 April. The writer says : — 



No useful art has made more real progress in the last ten 

 years than the art of cartography as it is employed in the pro- 

 duction of the sheets of a topographical survey. Improvements 

 in the processes of colour printing have kept pace with the 

 ambitions of the cartographer, so that he can without difficulty 

 put a dozen or more impressions in diflferent colours on a smgle 

 sheet ; for the first time he can produce a map which is legible 

 at a glance to the man who is trained to read it. And this 

 facility in map-reading is ^so essential to comfort in motoring, 

 and to safety in flying, that the art of map-making, its principles 

 and possibilities, has acqqired in the last few years an altogether 

 new importance. 



When success is judged by this standard the successful map is 

 the product of the last few years. Until the use of colour 

 became possible there was no hope of being able to produce a 

 really graphic map : and this was doubtless one of the reasons 

 why 'the production of the international map on the scale of one 

 in a million was so long delayed. 



The British War Office, contrary to its custom, has 

 been the first in the field with finished sheets, as ifs 

 officers were foremost in the steps which led to the 

 practical realisation of- the scheme. The system of 

 spelling adopted is illuminating. A place is called, not 

 by the name which it commonly bears in English, but 

 bv the transliteration into the Latin character of the 

 actual name of the place in Turkish or Greek, 

 kuinanian, or Bulgarian— so "Bulgaria." becomes 

 " Bulgarija." We have not '• the Turkish Empire " :— 



We have Memaliki Osmanie in ils place, with capital Isfambul 

 (and Constanlinople in brackets as a help) ; liastern Koumelia 

 is no more, and no name replaces it, but its capilal is Plovdiv 

 (Chilipponolis). A voyage' through Ak Deni;r (.V.gcan Sea) 

 and Ak Deniz Uoghazi (Dard-mellrs) lakes us to Mermer Denizi 

 (Sea of .Marmora) and thence by Isfambul Uoghazi (Bosporus) 

 into Kara Dcniz (the HIack Sea). 



The writer humorously remarks :— " The inter- 

 national committee said nothing about a guide to the 

 pronunciation of British place names." The method of 

 production is also indicated : — 



We believe that the admirable results of the French map are 

 obtained by drawing with a point upon a ihin film of while pig- 

 ment spread upon glass, .and from that plate the photo-etchcl 

 jinc plate is made. In the British War Office map, we und. . 

 ,tanil, a great part of the woik was drawn on an enlaigfd sc.ii 

 on tracing paiwr. reduced by phoL.giapliy, .and phofo-ctched on 

 .opper. The excellence of the result leads us to hope that we 

 may see n great chnnge in the cost of producing maps of Mm 

 highest cl»M. 



