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but an ocean, the largest of all oceans, and the only ocean that is navigable to all points of the earth's surface and at all seasons of the year. Just as certain great expanses of water lying between our continents are known as "oceans", so likewise is the great expanse of air an "ocean". 

Just as bodies of water, restricted in the sense of width, are known as rivers, or sometimes as navigable waterways, so are stretches of air, restricted as to width, now considered as navigable airways. In fact, this basic principle was recognized by the Morrow Board in 1925 and written into the Air Commerce Act of 1926, wherein Congress authorized and directed the Secretary of Commerce to designate, establish and maintain civil airways in the United States. Today, we already have our matters of inter-continent and international commerce conducted not alone by land and by water but also by air. Every major waterway, every principal railway, every arterial highway or groundway, - if I may so call it, - will eventually have its parallel in the air. In addition, airways are being and will continue to be created to those remote points of the earth's surface, such as the Arctic and Antarctic, which today man cannot navigate by water and to those more remote points of land which today man may not traverse by rail, by motor, or even by the most primitive forms of transportation. 

I fell an irrepressible impulse to suggest to you that the frozen interiors of the great unknown in the Arctic Ocean will ere long see airplanes landing and departing upon regular schedule. The Arctic, that fascinating ocean which today man seldom considers, and when he does 'tis which a shiver, will be transformed into a chilly Mediterranean and will be crossed by inter-national air liners proceeding on regular schedules by the shortest routes