A last word.
In an article relative to the building of the Boston and Lowell railroad was this quotation from Dr. Darwin's poem—The reader said (April 20, 1908), ‘The realization of these I willingly leave to people of the future. Terra firma is good enough for me. There are possibilities in air-ships and submarine boats, however. Perhaps the Historical Society fifty years (or less) hence may consider them.’ See Register, July, 1909. On the day of the Register's publication the daily press told of Louis Bleriot's flight across the English channel.Or, on wide waving wing expanded, bear
The flying chariot through the fields of air.
But eighteen of the fifty years have flown by and the young American, Lindbergh, has, in his ‘flying chariot,’ Spirit of St. Louis, traversed the thirty-six hundred miles of ‘fields of air’ in less than a day and a half. It took a week for the great cruiser Memphis to bring him home. But otherwise in the realm of science and research things have moved fast. Dr. Darwin, in all his prophetic fancy, would not have dared to predict that throughout this entire country the American people would hear the voice of our president as he welcomed the young aviator, ‘dowered with his mother's modesty and charm, and unspoiled,’ home again. With the thrill of these recent events still in mind, shall we not say, as did Professor Morse, ‘What hath God wrought!’ [p. 49]
