80 



DISCOVERY 



hardly fair, as the nature of balloon work niav be in 

 many cases entirely different from that of airshijis. A 

 small airship is not capable of putting to sea in bad 

 weather, and it is at all times dependent upon housing 

 facilities on land. A balloon, on the other hand, can 

 be kept at sea cither aboard a ship or aloft. A balloon 

 has been towed in the Bay of Biscay in winds ap- 

 proaching ninety miles per hour. In commercial Ufa 

 the kite balloon seems very useful in many under- 

 takings. Large areas of unapproachable or untrodden 

 land may be surveyed from photographs taken from 

 balloons. Many rivers run in deep ravines, the pre- 

 cipitous rocks shutting out completely the view of 

 the land beyond. In a balloon towed from a shallow- 

 draught boat, a surveyor could obtain by photograph 

 and from observation the data he needs for his map. 



The captive balloon is also used in making meteoro- 

 logical observations. Periodical ascents are made at 

 balloon stations for ascertaining weather conditions. 

 A large observatory would find a kite balloon valuable 

 for this class of work, and observations could be made 

 up to heights of 14,000 feet. 



During the war balloons were put to an ingenious 

 use. Long \vire streamers were lifted into the air, 

 making an apron from one balloon to another. This 

 formed part of the defence of London. Raiders had 

 to risk being caught in the net, or forced to ascend to 

 high altitudes, and thus lose accuracy in bomb-drop- 

 ping. 



In the future it is probable that kite balloons will be 

 used as landmarks for the main aerial lines over the 

 world. At landing-places for aeroplanes and airships 

 they could exhibit hghts or flares at night, possibly 

 even display searchlights. At sea they could be 

 anchored in much the same way as lightships are. It 

 has also been suggested that balloons be used for 

 locating shoals of fish. A suitable one for this pur- 

 pose would cost about £800, and could be handled 

 conveniently by a trawler. 



Hydrogen is the best gas to use for filling a balloon 

 because it is the hghtest. The lifting-power of the 

 balloon is proportional to the weight of a given volume 

 of air minus the weight of the same volume of the gas 

 used. It is thus greatest when the weight of the gas 

 used is smallest. Helium, which is the second lightest 

 gas known, has also been tried. It is twice as heavy 

 as hydrogen, but its lifting-power is 92 per cent, of that 

 of hydrogen. It is a rare gas, and so it is much more 

 e.vpcnsive than hydrogen. It has, however, the great 

 advantage of not being inflammable, so that in war, 

 where cost is of less importance than safety, it has 

 obvious advantages. Helium is made on a large scale 

 from natural gas in America. 



The New Horizon in Euro- 

 pean Literature 



By J. G. Robertson, M.A., Ph.D. 



Professor ol German in the Universilg ol London 



In the general stocktaking in which, as a preparation 

 for reconstruction and new beginnings, we have all 

 been instinctively indulging, literature has not had 

 altogether its share. A reason lies probably in the 

 elusive waywardness of all forms of imaginative 

 acti\'ity ; we feel that no amount of stocktaking and 

 no schemes of reconstruction will avail in giving 

 direction to the production of the future. Whatever 

 new realms the poet is to con 'uer, on whatever new 

 argosy of spiritual discovery he is to embark, he sets 

 out with sealed orders ; stocktaking is of little use to 

 him, even in helping him to avoid the errors of his 

 predecessors ; the best of plans are ignored by the 

 world-forces that control the evolution of aesthetic 

 ideas. We may plan and forecast new conquests in 

 chemistry, in biology, even in the more abstract 

 sciences which trench on the borderland of meta- 

 physics ; but when it is a question of the new ideas 

 which poetry is to embody, and the new forms it will 

 assume, we can only patiently await events. 



It is still too soon to report, as it is the obvious duty 

 of Discovery, a modern Ljmceus on its watch-tower, 

 to report, on the progress of European literature " after 

 the \\'ar." Literature has not yet progressed ; it ha- 

 not even clearly indicated how it is going to progre^^. 

 Possibly we may have to wait some time for real signs. 

 Such, at least, was the experience of the last European 

 war, that of 1870-71, when the literatures of France 

 and Germany proved strangely dilatorj' in adapting 

 themselves to the new orientation ; in fact, the real 

 effect of that war on literature only became apparent 

 when the generation that was mature in 1870 had 

 abdicated, and the men born into the new era were old 

 enough to take command. It may be so again. 



Hypotheses of literary evolution can only be con- 

 structed on the analogy of the past. Now, how far 

 may we avail ourselves of analogy in setting up a 

 hypothesis of the lines on which imaginative work is 

 likely to advance ? In general, literatures are freakish, 

 capricious, perversely undocile in their development — 

 with perhaps the single exception of that of Germany. 

 This, the most subjective and personal of them all, 

 and consequently, one would expect, the least open 

 to guidance, has shown itself quite extraordinarily 

 ready to follow tlu\lcad of its theorists. The Germans, 

 we other Europeans~might say, have always put the 

 cart before the horse ;]^thcy have, since the sixteenth 

 century, inN'ariably theorised about their literature 



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