XI 

 OUR WONDERFUL GENERATION 



ONE day in September, 1912, it was announced 

 that the military maneuvers of the British 

 Army had come to an abrupt and unexpected ter- 

 mination because they were rendered farcical by the 

 airmen scouts. Secret maneuvering was impossible 

 for either side. 



A few days later Count Zeppelin sailed casually 

 forth from Berlin in one of his new dirigible balloons 

 and appeared presently hovering over Copenhagen. 

 He alighted, paid a formal visit to the authorities, 

 and arose and sailed away. It was a peaceful visit, 

 yet the navigator had been enjoined not to direct his 

 craft over any fortress or warship. But what if the 

 visit had been warlike, the craft laden with bombs, 

 and the forts and warships its chief object of atten- 

 tion? 



At about the time when these things were 

 happening in Europe, a great body of men of science 

 gathered in New York to attend the sessions of the 

 Eighth International Congress of Applied Chemistry. 

 These are the men whose labors link the laboratory 

 with the workshop. If the full story of their efforts 

 of recent years were told, there would be revealed 

 a record of revolutions in half a score of important 



3*9 



