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Nowadays marvellous scientific discoveries come upon us so thick and fast, that we have almost lost the capacity for wonder. Yet although aeroplanes are almost as familiar to us as motor-cars, we cannot help stopping and staring whenever an aeroplane, humming like a great bee and flashing in the sun, passes over our heads. As it is well indeed that we should wonder; for how marvellous a thing it is that man have conquered the air and can now fly in the sky like birds! And this has been done in our own day; for the invention is so recent that if people had been told only seventy-five years ago that we should be flying to-day, they would have laughed the prophecy to scorn.
The invention of the aeroplane has brought about as great a revolution in men’s habits as that of the railway engine and the steamship more than a hundred years ago. Then the world shrank in size; for whereas in the old days of sailing vessels, England was six months away from Bombay, it is now only a matter of days away by steamer. Today we have a regular air-service playing between Kathmandu, London, and other parts of the world. One can take breakfast in Kathmandu, lunch in Bangkok and dinner in London on the same day. None would have dreamed of such tranportation seventy-five years ago. This rapid mode of travelling has redically changed trade and commerce, men’s habits and their views of things.
