During the four years that have elapsed since the breaking out of the Great War the construction of aeronautic motors, aeroplanes, and the science of aviation have advanced at least a quarter of a century, so that if the proposition was feasible before the war it ought certainly to be very practicable to-day, as many authorities have testified. The _Daily Mail_ prize of $50,000 is still beckoning to the adventurous spirit. The Martinsyde two-seater land-machine and the two-seater Sopwith have already established themselves at St. John’s, Newfoundland, to begin the flight to Ireland. The United States Navy NC-1, NC-3, and NC-4 have flown from Rockaway by the southern route to the Azores. Once the first flight is negotiated, the aircraft manufacturers are convinced there will be a greater demand for flying seaplanes than for ocean liners, for they feel sure that most of the people going to and coming from Europe would prefer to travel in that way, and in less than half the time now taken by the fastest ocean greyhounds. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Flying Magazine._ The Vickers-“Vimy” bomber. This plane carried Captain J. Alcock and Lieutenant A. W. Brown from Newfoundland to Ireland in 16 hours and 12 minutes.] In conclusion, then, it may be safely laid down as an axiom that the conveyance which reduces man’s time in travelling from one place on this globe to another will sooner or later be adopted by him. No matter what the discomforts or the dangers or the expense may be in the beginning, he will eventually find a way to change the inconvenience into the greatest luxuries, the expense will be reduced to within the means of all, and the dangers will be diminished to infinitesimal proportions. It was so in the beginning, it is so now, and it will be so till the end of recorded time. It was so with the recalcitrant camel, the ponderous elephant, the wild horse. It was thus that man transformed the floating log, which he propelled with his feet, into a floating palace, driven thousands of miles across the greatest of oceans. Likewise he metamorphosed the puny stationary steam-engine into a demon that is more powerful than a thousand horses, and that rushes him across the broad spaces of the earth faster than the fastest deer. Indeed, with the aeroplane, man has already done what was considered for countless ages as the acme of the impossible—he has learned to fly; and in the short space of a decade and a half he has flown faster, farther, and he has performed more convolutions than the noblest birds of prey—yes, it may safely be said that he has made the once marvellous imaginary flight of the magic carpet of the Arabian Nights—when compared with the aerial exploits of the fliers in the Great War—fade into the most diminutive insignificance and the tamest fiction.