(TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY MAGAZINE IN WHICH IT APPEARED) BY RUDYARD KIPLING Illustrated in Color BY FRANK X. LEYENDECKER AND H. REUTERDAHL NEW YORK Doubleday, Page & Company 1909 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1909, BY RUDYARD KIPLING PUBLISHED, MARCH, 1909 REPRINTED IN BOOK FORM BY PERMISSION OF THE S. S. McCLURE COMPANY...

At nine o'clock of a gusty winter night I stood on the lower stages of one of the G. P. O. outward mail towers. My purpose was a run to Quebec in "Postal Packet 162 or such other as may be appointed"; and the Postmaster-General himself countersigned the order. This talisman opened all doors, even those in the despatching-caisson at the foot of the tower, where they were delivering the sorted Continental mail. The bags lay packed close as herrings in the long gray under-bodies which our G. P. O.

No changes in English Inland lights for week ending Dec. 18. Planetary Coastal Lights. Week ending Dec. 18. Verde inclined guide-light changes from 1st proximo to triple flash—green white green—in place of occulting red as heretofore. The warning light for Harmattan winds will be continuous vertical glare (white) on all oases of trans-Saharan N. E. by E. Main Routes. Invercargil (N. Z.)—From 1st prox.: extreme southerly light (double red) will exhibit white beam inclined 45 degrees on approach o

Week ending Dec. 18th. Sable Island Landing Towers —Green freighter, number indistinguishable, up-ended, and fore-tank pierced after collision, passed 300-ft. level 2 p.m. Dec. 15th. Watched to water and pithed by Mark Boat. N. F. Banks —Postal Packet 162 reports Halma freighter (Fowey—St. John's) abandoned, leaking after weather, 46° 15' N. 50° 15' W. Crew rescued by Planet liner Asteroid . Watched to water and pithed by postal packet, Dec. 14th. Kerguelen Mark Boat reports last call from Cymen

No answer to General Call having been received during the last week from following overdues, they are posted as missing. General Call (all Mark Boats) out for:...

Valkyrie (racing plane), A. J. Hartley owner, New York (twice warned). Geisha (racing plane), S. van Cott owner, Philadelphia (twice warned). Marvel of Peru (racing plane), J. X. Peixoto owner, Rio de Janeiro (twice warned). For the Board : Notes...

The Northern weather so far shows no sign of improvement. From all quarters come complaints of the unusual prevalence of sleet at the higher levels. Racing-planes and digs alike have suffered severely—the former from unequal deposits of half-frozen slush on their vans (and only those who have "held up" a badly balanced plane in a cross wind know what that means), and the latter from loaded bows and snow-cased bodies. As a consequence, the Northern and Northwestern upper levels have been practica

The scandals of the past few years have at last moved the yachting world to concerted action in regard to "bat" boat racing. We have been treated to the spectacle of what are practically keeled racing-planes driven a clear five foot or more above the water, and only eased down to touch their so-called "native element" as they near the line. Judges and starters have been conveniently blind to this absurdity, but the public demonstration off St. Catherine's Light at the Autumn Regattas has borne a

To the Editor —Only last week, while crossing the Equator (W. 26.15), I became aware of a furious and irregular cannonading some fifteen or twenty knots S. 4 E. Descending to the 500 ft. level, I found a party of Transylvanian tourists engaged in exploding scores of the largest pattern atmospheric bombs (A. B. C. standard) and, in the intervals of their pleasing labours, firing bow and stern smoke-ring swivels. This orgy —I can give it no other name—went on for at least two hours, and naturally

Vigilans —The Laws of Auroral Derangements are still imperfectly understood. Any overheated motor may of course "seize" without warning; but so many complaints have reached us of accidents similar to yours while shooting the Aurora that we are inclined to believe with Lavalle that the upper strata of the Aurora Borealis are practically one big electric "leak," and that the paralysis of your engines was due to complete magnetization of all metallic parts. Low-flying planes often "glue up" when ne

( Reviewed by Réné      Talland. École Aëronautique, Paris ) Ten years ago Lavalle, "that imperturbable dreamer of the heavens," as Lazareff hailed him, gathered together the fruits of a lifetime's labour, and gave it, with well-justified contempt, to a world bound hand and foot to Barald's Theory of Vertices and "compensating electric nodes." "They shall see," he wrote—in that immortal postscript to "The Heart of the Cyclone"—"the Laws whose existence they derided written in fire beneath them."