Official Photograph, U., S. Naval Aviation HERE IS A CLOSE-UP VIEW OF A NAVY BALLOON AT THE PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION. THERE ARE FIVE PASSENGERS IN THE BASKET, AND ABOVE THEIR HEADS WILL BE NOTED THE APPENDIX, WHICH IS OPEN AND IN PROPER POSITION TO FUNCTION of the complement, the man in charge, is a skilled free-balloon pilot. Without him practically every trivial accident to power or gear would be fatal to the dirigible and all her passengers. We have imperative need of dirigibles and kite-balloons in the Navy. If men did not train themselves first in free balloons, none of them could fly either blimp or kite without hideous risk. The spherical, clumsy, county-fair type of free balloon is the safest and easiest craft in which to gain the necessary ballooning skill. That free-ballooning is comparatively a safer pursuit than driving a Ford or riding in a sky-scraper's elevator we are willing to maintain; but, safe or dangerous, it must be undertaken if we wish to have our dirigible pilots come home unscathed and our kite observers come back on board for dinner. Navigation of a free balloon is not a matter of guesswork. A free-balloon pilot cannot say, "On the 15th of next month I am going to fly from Tallahassee to St. Louis," but he can study the weather map on the day he starts from Tallahassee and predict within a few miles where he will come down next morning. When the big silk bubbles flew from Birmingham last year, the Belgian who carried off the cup pored over the map just before climbing into his basket, and with a wave of his hand, called out: "Good-by! I am going to Maine!" His actual landing was near the eastern border of northern New York, and it was a forced landing. With dry weather, he would undoubtedly have had to use his "rip cord" to avoid landing in the sea off the Maine coast. While every balloon nowadays carries instruments for recording altitude and speed and pressure within and without the envelope, a pilot must learn the "feel of the air," which tells him even before the most delicate instrument can record it that his balloon is rising or falling, is losing gas or taking air. In a dirigible, which is driven by power or a kite which is towed at a fixed altitude at the end of a cable, the changes in buoyancy of the machine produced by atmospheric changes are rarely noticeable, and if experienced for the first time after the breakdown of an engine would be baffling in the extreme. In the spherical motorless free balloon such changes in lift and stability are im mediately apparent. A free balloon riding down the wind at low altitude will shoot upwards as she nears a steep hill, sagging down again after crossing its summit, tossed by the air current pouring over the crest more abruptly than a power-driven balloon would ever be. The slightest cloud passing over the face of the sun, the first gleam of sunshine in the early morning, a hint of rain in the air, or a slant of cold wind, every slight change in temperature up or down, immediately registers its effect on the free balloon's flight, which effect the pilot must understand and know how to counteract. Where the dirigible can plow her way through shifting air currents and control her height with her speed and rudders, the free balloon must learn how to outguess nature, how to control the elements themselves. The theory of ballooning postulates that in order to be other than a toy of the wind the balloon must first contain more gas than is necessary to raise the pilot and his instruments and basket, and, second, enough sand or water ballast to counterbalance this superfluous "lift." The endurance of the balloon in the air is measured by these balanced excesses of lift and weight, by the amount of gas the pilot can afford to lose for the purpose of flying lower, and the amount of ballast he can throw over with a view to flying higher. As long as he has gas or sand to release he can continue his flight. When these have reached the safe minimum or when a landing becomes imperative for other reason, he comes down deliberately, ripping his envelope to allow all gas to escape and dumping his last ballast to make his fall safely gradual. On a still day, he can "valve" down without difficulty. In a high wind, he must choose his landing-place with care as he races past at lower and lower altitude, "ripping" and coming "down by the run" in a soft spot from a height as low as surrounding trees will permit. During his flight the sunshine expands his gas and so lightens it, increasing its lift and the balloon's height. A passing cloud will shrink the gas volume again, and lift has been lost in the amount of gas which expansion forced out, so the basket sags nearer to the tree-tops below. A rain-storm not only chills and shrinks the gas but increases the weight of the balloon, and ballast must go overboard to keep her up. When the sun breaks through the clouds, the drying envelope rapidly lightens and the gas rapidly expands and the balloon starts to soar. In short, the free-balloon pilot has a thousand pretty problems to solve in each flight, problems which he would never encounter in a dirigible until his life depended on solving them correctly! Lifting gas naturally never falls, and to be deliberately released the top of the balloon must be opened. Expanding gas, however, would quickly reach a pressure where the silk cover would be torn open and the balloon fall from a considerable height if no immediate outlet were permitted. For that reason, a wide tube, called the "appendix," at the bottom of the bag is opened as soon as the balloon is clear of obstruction around her starting-field, and before the danger-point in pressure is reached gas is being forced down and out through this appendix. On the other hand, as chilled gas shrinks, air is sucked in through the appendix, keeping the bag plump enough to insure equal strain on the supporting "leading lines" of the load ring. The sensitive response of the balloon to these changes in volume and weight of its contents is immediately apparent to even a tyro. A glance at the accompanying sketch will show that a free balloon is far more complicated than would at first appear, and will serve besides to show the "how" as well as the "why." As in an airplane, after the first sensations, the free-balloon student has little or no feeling of being in danger under any ordinary conditions. He feels reasonably sure of where he is going, and confident of his ability to land there without mishap. He is almost glad when the monotony is broken and he is mistaken by woodsmen for a "revenuer" and fired at with a shotgun; and Official Photograph, U. S. Naval Aviation EVEN THE HUGE R-34, AND SIMILAR RIGID AIRSHIPS, ARE NO BETTER THAN FREE BALLOONS WHEN THEIR MOTIVE POWER IS OUT OF COMMISSION. THIS SHIP, OVER 600 FEET LONG, HAS TO BE HANDLED EXACTLY THE SAME AS A FREE BALLOON WHEN ITS MOTORS ARE NOT TURNING OVER he is filled with glee when cotton-field hands run shrieking from his approach, mistaking him for the Archangel Gabriel. For, after all, free-ballooning is monotonous, certain, deadly dull. It has its risks, but, as a certain dear "jackanapes" of our childhood remarked, "You might get struck by lightning buying a pound of butter!" When the writer first contemplated this article, he sought out an experienced balloonist, an instructor of students, and asked for striking features and incidents to make the picture clearer. And after long thought, he gave me the dialogue with which I have opened it as the salient and most usual episode after a night of black drifting when the dead-reckoning course needed verification to square the chart with the country sliding past below. 4 In March, 1920, a balloon from Pensacola made a noteworthy flight. Under command of Lieutenant T. C. Lönnquest, carrying four men, and with a capacity of 35,000 cubic feet of gas and 930 pounds of ballast, she flew through rain and snow storms from Pensacola, Florida, to Murdock, Illinois, a distance comparing favorably with the records of the international races, where but two men take the air with great spheres of 80,000 cubic feet. Between the time of her start, at 6:35 P.M. on March 23, and her landing, at 2:53 P.M. of the 24th, her log, kept by Lieutenant G. C. Cannon, contains fifty-four time entries. Most of them are bald statements of "Alt. 1900. Course 305. Speed, 15 m.p.h. Air unstable." Five or six times during the twenty hours the log becomes loquacious, as this: "5:30 A.M. Alt. 2000. Course 340. Speed 32 m.p.h. Passing over river country. Many small streams flowing in meander scars. Asked location from several people on ground, who replied with various pleasantries but declined to commit themselves to a definite statement. Sky clear except for small bank of stratus to the east." "10:15 A.M. On drag rope. Thunder and nimbus clouds passed S. W. Fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth bags ballast out. Hailed men on ground. Secretive as ever." "12:25 P.M. Twenty-second bag out. Now passing one-mile blocks into which Illinois is divided in 65 seconds." "2:51 PM. Passed over large barn with sign 'H. T. Barr, Undertaker and Embalmer.' Decided to land." "2:53 P.M. By use of valve and ballast balanced off on drag rope about 25 feet above ground, speed 55 m.p.h. Made rip landing in muddy corn-field. Dragged about 50 feet. Greeted by farmer, who invited us to come right in to supper." The invitation was undoubtedly accepted with enthusiasm, as an entry at noon records that they "split the next to last sandwich four ways." When unusual incidents of the trip were requested, the only one brought out was that a small green lizard had mounted the basket in Pensacola, and the "poor little cuss was frozen stiff when we landed and found him." And the last entry in Lieutenant Lonnquest's report invites attention to the "close correspondence of the track predicted by Lieutenant Reed to the actual track." Free-ballooning is not an enterprise of fools and dare-devils, but, like all other military training, is founded on a solid basis. That basis is that the men who fight must be safe from any danger except that of the enemy. Upon the freeballoon pilot the safety and the very life of the dirigible depend. A YOUNG OLD-TIME SMOKE- These views of the Shaker settlement in the town of Enfield, New Hampshire, show one of the few remaining communities of that peculiar sect. "The Shakers' village in this place," says our informant, "was very small, and evidently their numbers were dwindling. They were maintaining a little school where children from 'the world's people' were being instructed. They had a small shop or store for the sale of Shaker articles, but they no longer sell herb remedies as they did in former years. I attended their religious Sunday morning service, in which the men sat on one side of the room and the women on the other. At the present day, however, they have no dancing or anything to correspond with the ceremonies which in former years gave them the name of 'Shakers.' Their service did not differ materially from that of a great many other meetings of a similar character. I found them a very kindly people, very obliging, and seemingly very sincere in their belief" Ο THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDERS BY ROLLIN LYNDE HARTT UR own lost tribes, the Mountaineers-three million souls and more-trace their lineage to backwoodsmen who built log cabins in Appalachia before the Revolution. The dreamy uplands they inhabit cover 112,000 square miles, parceled out among nine Southern States. The mountains have been for most Americans largely a terra incognita. To be sure we knew that from Appalachia had come the intrepid Alvin C. York. Somewhere in Appalachia, we fancied, dwelt the originals of characters in grim tales by John Fox, Jr. Moreover, Horace Kephart had sketched with incomparable fidelity an Appalachian bailiwick like many another but glaringly unlike many more. And the typical missionary leaflet, mistaking fact for truth, had pictured the "typical" mountain home, the "typical" mountain family-misrepresentative, both. Not once had a qualified observer-historian, sociologist, economist, educator, and philanthropist combined-given us an interpretation of Appalachia in its entirety. At last we have just that; for the Russell Sage Foundation has published "The Southern Highlander and His Homeland."1 John C. Campbell, author of this remarkable book, spent nearly a quarter of a century-all his active years-in Appalachia. As a teacher, first. Then as an explorer threading mountain trails on horseback. Finally, as secretary of the Sage Foundation's Southern Highlands Division and as a kind of lay bishop, to whom mountain pedagogues, mountain social workers, and mountain dominies came with their problems. Few "fotched-on furriners" (Campbell was a Northerner, educated at Williams and Andover) have known the mountains so broadly or the mountaineer so intimately. In its olive-green cover, bearing the Sage Foundation's seal, and with its appendices and scrupulously prepared tables and elaborate maps, "The Southern Highlander and His Homeland" wears the look, almost, of a reference work for specialists. Its outline, as revealed by chapter heads, gives much the same impression, and it is true that specialists will find in it a history of the mountains, an exhaustive analysis of their resources, and a most painstaking account of mountain life and ways. The missionary overlord meanwhile will value especially such passages as this from Campbell's chapter on "Avenues for Contact and Progress:" "The mountaineer is extremely sensitive and independent. He is not a person to be pushed where he does not wish to go, nor is he submissively responsive to a shaping process. Although often 1 The Southern Highlander and His Homeland. By John C. Campbell. The Russell Sage Foundation, New York. appreciative of efforts made for his good by those who have won his regard, he is yet somewhat distrustful of innovations or of new people trying old methods. Furthermore, he is not altogether an easy person with whom to work, for his individualism leads him to disregard the thoughts and plans of others, and to consult only his own wishes, which to-day may differ widely from those of yesterday. His sensitiveness renders it very difficult for his best friends to make public any statement regarding him, even by way of clearing up misrepresentations, or to suggest measures of promise for his country and his peo From "The Southern Highlander and His A MOUNTAINEER OF KENTUCKY "He is not a person to be pushed " ple. Those who have his confidence may guide him and may tell him his shortcomings face to face, but frequently he turns upon the leaders whom he has followed because they have set forth his need to the public. Many an attempt for community betterment in the mountains has failed because those who planned it have not duly regarded this sensitiveness. There is, however, more of hope for people who feel thus than for such as are ready to be exploited and willing to be held up, or to hold themselves up, as cheerful recipients of 'missionary effort."" Yet a rare humorist was Campbell, and, like the ever-captivating Henri de Varigny, knew how to enliven a scholarly treatise with bouts of fun. His volume abounds in good yarns. For example, when speaking of the mountain eer's native cleverness, he repeats a talk with a ten-year-old boy. The Fourth of July was approaching. "Why do we celebrate?" asked Campbell. "We fit the British and we licked them," said the lad. "What did we fight them for?" "Taxation without representation." "Is anybody taxed without representation in this country now?" "No." "How about women?" "They have an old man" (husband) "to vote for them." "But suppose they haven't any old man?" "Their brother." But suppose a woman hasn't any husband or brother. Oughtn't she to vote then?" "No! A woman what ain't got sense enough to get her up an old man ain't got sense enough to vote." If Campbell's chapter on "Individualism in Various Aspects" looks a bit too learnedly awesome, have no fear. In the midst of it you will come upon this merriest of mountain ballads, the "Swapping Song" I swapped me a horse and got me a mare, And then I rode from fair to fair. Tum a wing waw waddle, Tum a jack straw straddle, I swapped my mare and got me a cow, And in that trade I just learned how. I swapped my cow and got me a calf, And in that trade I just lost half. I swapped my calf and got me a mule, And then I rode like a dog-gone fool. I swapped my mule and got me a sheep, And then I rode myself to sleep. I swapped my sheep and got me a hen, O what a pretty thing I had then. I swapped my hen and got me a rat, Looks like two little cats upon a hay stack. I swapped my rat and got me a mole, And the dog-gone thing went straight to its hole. And there is a hint of humor, in its way, in an old mountaineer's version of the story of Abraham: "Abraham went out in the wilderness on a four days' journey, and he took with him several camels and she asses and built hisself an altar unto the Lord. And he packed wood hisself for the altar. And Isaac said unto Abraham, 'Pap, whar's the ram?' And Abraham said unto Isaac, 'Son, you needn't be worritted about the ram. The Lord will pervide a sacrifice.' "Then Abraham took his son and stripped him, and he drew his knife (kindly slow-like-don't you reckon?'cause it war his boy) and turned away his head. And thar was a ram, ketched by his horn in the grapevine! "I've studied a right smart, and I've asked a heap of men learned in books. What do you reckon would have happened if Abraham had killed Isaac? I reckon there wouldn't have been no need to kill Christ. The Scripture says we must be saved by blood, and we would have been saved by the blood of Isaac." Along with the humor there was a fine tenderness in Campbell. He used to promise that some day-the day never came-he would write mountain stories more or less in the vein of "Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush." He had material in plenty. For instance, he was chatting one afternoon with a mountain girl, who said, "I've come to tell you goodby, for I'm aimin' to quit school." "But why, Myrtle?" "What's the use of educating me? I'm only a girl, and they's eight young ones at home. You know where we live." "But you will be a more helpful girl with an education, and you will have a much wider influence through your home, later." "That ain't for me. Don't you see what's happening? The best boys, the only kind I would want to marry, don't stay here when they finish school. There's nothing ahead for me but to stay home and let my men-folks support me, or to marry FICTION some one I don't want now I been to school. I'm wanting things I can't have. I'd better be left in my ignorance." Nevertheless Myrtle remained at school. You can guess why. Despite his tenderness, Campbell avoided sentimentality always, and in dealing with such matters as illiteracy, moonshining, and feuds (there once were feuds here and there in Appalachia) his book is unfailingly judicial. Yet of sentiment-the real thing, not its counterfeit he had much. Indeed it was sentiment that led him to devote himself to work among our lost tribes. Long ago a family of mountaineers had befriended his father-taken in the lad just over from Scotland, nursed him through a terrible illness, and literally saved his life. That Scotchman's son, years afterward, wanted to pay them back, and did. Campbell was never a "missionary." To the end of his brave career-he died in the spring of 1920 from a malady brought on by overwork-he was discharging a debt. THE NEW BOOKS AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. By Arthur Train. The Macmillan Company, New York. A short international romance. A New York lawyer, used to American business hustle, runs over to England to stir up English solicitors. He expects to get the matter settled in a week. He doesn't! But he learns how English professional men combine work, play, and culture, and how they try to be sure if slow. Also he finds her. CASE IN CAMERA (A). By Oliver Onions. The Macmillan Company, New York. The name of the book is in itself a play on words, in which lurks a solution of the story's mystery. Why do so many people in this case discourage the solving of what seems to be plain murder? That is the second problem-and the an The swer is a strange one. The story is original and its incidents singular. TIMBER WOLVES. By Bernard Cronin. Macmillan Company, New York. A story of adventure in Tasmania, where big business crooks are in a timber trust which does not stop at crime. A young English lawyer goes out to look into the matter and finds trouble and danger. He is able to help the independent operators and to win lively Peggy, daughter of one of them. TRUSTY SERVANT (THE). By G. V. McFad den. The John Lane Company, New York. This has more villainy to the square inch than any story since "Lady Audley's Secret." The innocent hero in the first fifty pages is falsely charged with murder, convicted, sentenced to the gallows, taken back to jail (because George, he Prince of Wales, is thereabouts, and might be shocked-he wouldn't; loved hangings), taken to the gallows a second time, hanged, cut down hastily (George in the offing again), sold as a dead body to a sculptor as a model, resuscitated, made a slave by the sculptor, and branded T. S. for Trusty Servant. Now his troubles really begin, and last for three hundred pages more, when he is happily married. If you want excitement, grand, gloomy, and peculiar, it is here wholesale. And it's not badly written. TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION DENMARK. By Frederic C. Howe, Ph.D. Harcourt, Brace & Howe, New York. Denmark, the author says, is a demonstration of the possibilities of democracy, industrial as well as political. The remarkable progress of this Old World kingdom in directions in which the American Republic is supposed to lead forms a lesson, well presented in this book, which American publicists, statesmen, industrialists, and citizens generally should learn and take to heart. AMERICAN ECONOMIC LIFE IN ITS CIVIC AND SOCIAL ASPECTS. By Henry Reed Burch, Ph.D. The Macmillan Company, New York. DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. By Jerome Dowd, M.A. The Harlow Publishing Company, Oklahoma City. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED ENGINEER (THE). By John Hays Hammond. Illustrated. |