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[[caption]] LANDING MACHINERY AND SUPPLIES AT CAMP WELLMAN FROM THE ARCTIC STEAMER FRITHJOF.

of the enterprises. Men who know what cannot be done in aerial navigation, as well as what may be done, do not need to be told that the general public is as far from a correct understanding in its present bubbling and ignorant optimism as it was a short time ago in its equally dense and undiscriminating skepticism.
Count Zeppelin has, indeed, expressed through the Independent his faith that a line of commercial airships to ply between German cities may be established in the near future. Thomas A. Edison has declared that while the present machines for air-navigation are not practicable in the true sense, the ultimate solution of the problem is near, and that then the reaching of the North Pole and the crossing from America to Europe will be very simple. Sir Hiram Maxim predicts the revolutionizing of all warfare by the introduction of aerial battleships and cruisers. Prof. Simon Newcomb, in the Nineteenth Century, sharply calls attention to the limitations which physical laws have seemingly placed upon both types of aerial craft-lighter than air and heavier- and scouts the idea that such ships can be useful in any important way for the ordinary or commercial service of society, or even for war. When the doctors disagree, who shall save the patient? Without arguing the case,

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