5o6 



NATURE 



[August 23, 1917 



THE CIVIL AERIAL TRANSPORT 

 COMMITTEE. 



NO time is going to be lost in facing the new 

 problems arising from the war, and in 

 setting to work on them at once at the earliest 

 favourable opportunity. 



The title, "Civil Aerial," of the committee 

 shows how the experience of the novel warlike 

 conditions are to be utilised in peaceful applica- 

 tion, in a flying p)Ost at least of an airplane, and 

 possible extension to the large airship for pas- 

 senger service across the sea. 



Throwing intellectual timidity overboard, we 

 no longer await the sequence of events, watch- 

 ing the progress of the rest of the world to see 

 what is best, and reap the advantage of waiting 

 and at no expense. The economy of this 

 cunctando policy has proved illusory. 



Unlimited money, poured out in war like water, 

 has solved these 

 problems, and the 

 leisurely hesitation 

 of official timidity 

 has been flung 

 aside on the scrap- 

 heap of unload- 

 ing initiative and 

 expense of experi- 

 ment on private 

 enterprise. 



Going back in 

 human imagina- 

 tion as far as his- 

 tory can carry us, 

 we always find 

 the obsession of 

 the poet and artist 

 dreamer for 

 human flight. 



In Chaldaean, 

 Assyrian, and 

 Babylonian ages 

 we have only the la 



sculptured repre- 

 sentations to go by ; but Homer, ^schylus, Plato 

 describe the flight of the gods through the air as a 

 matter of course, and blame the engineer inventor, 

 Prometheus, for being so slow to put the idea 

 into action for his fellow-men, Daedalus and 

 Icarus, as Jules Verne has blamed us of his own 

 time by implication. 



In the Greek play Old Ocean arrives at the 

 wings as the deus ex machind, a flying machine, 

 dismounting from his mechanical four-footed 

 bird, an Arimaspian griffin, after a single flight 

 to the Caucasus from the Pillars of Hercules — 

 Gil^raltar and Jebel Musa. This is his radius of 

 action, as the bird is said to be anxious to return 

 to the perch in his cage. The daughters of Ocean 

 have already put in an appearance as Chorus on 

 their winged chariot, careful, they tell us, to 

 lighten the load by removing' their sandals, and 

 so reluctant to put their bare feet on the ochreous 

 earth of the volcanic mountain-top of the 

 Caucasus. 



NO. 2495, VOL. 99] 



Such details of scientific interest escape the 

 attention of the classical schoolmaster, absorbed 

 in the grammatical parsing ; and he would hate 

 to be told of their existence, for fear the inquiring 

 scientific boy should start asking questions he 

 could not answer himself. 



Not only in Chaldaean, Babylonian, Hebrew, 

 Chinese legends, of Ishtar, the prophet Habak- 

 kuk, and the Bronze Dragon, but in Greek art 

 also, the mysterious rSle of the fabulous griffin 

 can be traced, such as the supporters of the 

 theatre stall in Athens of the priest of Dionysus ; 

 also in the bas-relief in St. Mark's, Venice, repre- 

 sentation of the legend of Alexander, as told bv 

 Callisthenes, flying in his chariot of sixteen-griffin 

 power, but room only for two in the sculpture 

 (reproduced in the photograph) ; capable of being 

 used also as a submarine. The artist has followed 

 closely the description of Callisthenes in giving 

 Alexander a long stick in each hand to steer the 



LEGGENDA DI ALESSAXDRO. 



I unbridled griffins. A savoury lump of meat is 

 ' fixed on the end, and the griffins follow this with 

 their eyes and fly after it. 



Many similar sculptures could probably h? 

 i traced in our own cathedrals if only a traim 

 search was made. 



So the griffin is the crest to be selected appri 

 priate for the Civil Aerial Transport Committer 

 and not a winged figure as Icarus, which nev, 

 would work mechanically except on the sm:i 

 scale of the dragon-fly. Pennae non hom'v 

 datae. 



The romantic history of the subject is too va^ 

 to be followed up here any further. And th' 

 jaunty p>oetic imagination has never ceased i 

 reproach the engineer descendants of Promethev 

 for declaring the problem impKJSsible mechanicall; 

 To-day they can turn on him with the unanswe: 

 able — "I alwavs told you so." But mankir 

 had to wait all these previous aeons for the moti^ 

 power, not the mere power of the imagination 



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