HOBBY-HORSES

Man travels through the world whither his hobby-horse bears him, sees those things which the faithful animal gives him to see, browses on what fodder of facts the hobby recommends. For years an ancient Abyssinian manuscript. "The Glory of the Kings", has rested among the treasures of the British Museum, and many times has it been translated. But never until an enthusiast for flying studied it did it disclose that Solomon gave to his friend, the Queen of Sheba, an airship which her son, Menyelek, flew. Without the hobby-horse of Colonel Lockwood Marsh, Secretary of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the world might still honor Leonarda da Vinci as the first designer of air craft.

Professor Kittredge once said that he marvelled at the genius of the "skin-clad savage (name and date unknown) who first invented the fish-hook or the blow-gun or the fire-drill." It is possible that the genius of this ancient savage has been grossly under-rated. Heretofore scientists alone have examined the records of the rocks and runes. Why not turn loose upon these records devotees of electrical lore or send into the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen those with a hobby for automobiles? Then, thanks to the hobby-horse, perhaps the world will learn that the Neolithic man had telephone connections with the adjacent caves or that Pharaoh toured his land in a horseless carriage.