A NEW PROBLEM OF THE LAW. BY ARTHUR F. GOTTHOLD. IN these days when two out of three prac tising lawyers write text-books out of office hours, and the third dictates legal monographs before breakfast, it is rare to rind a question, the answer to which will not be found in Somebody on Something. Nevertheless, both courts and text writers have heretofore dodged all mention of the rules of law as applicable to airships. It is far from being the writer's intention to fill this gap. All he hopes to do is to suggest some of the problems which will have to be answered in the future, and per haps to point out a few useful analogies. At first sight it might seem as if the Courts of Admirality would step in and take charge of the international phase of the subject, but maturer thought shows us how absurd it would 'be for those grave tribunals to notice the affairs of a ship which sailed above the rain belt from Tucson, Ariz., to the Matterhorn. Again we may ask whether the rules as to lights, passing, etc., which now control ship ping, will be equally controlling of airshipping. For instance, it must be decided whether an electric aeroplane descending at an angle of forty-five degrees has the right of way over a sailing craft on the port up ward tack. Then, too, how about lights? Red and green are all right in their primitive way, but we must have others above and below. Until the adoption of an international code, the writer begs to suggest celestial blue for the upper part of the craft, and solferino for the lower part. Or is an airship bound by the rules of the road? And if so, what road—to turn to the left, as in England, or to the right, as in this country? All of these difficulties, however, are mere matters of detail and can easily be arranged
by a congress of the hot-air artists of the world. There are, however, graver problems. It has often been loosely stated that a man's right in his land extends usque ad ccelum. No deep research is necessary to prove tnat these statements are pure dicta. It would certainly be monstrous to suppose that M. SantosDumont must respond in damages for a tech nical trespass to the owner of every house over which his machine may pass. That the owner of a house should have the exclusive privilege of mooring to the top of his own flag-pole is well enough, but that he should attempt to control the columns of air above is monstrous. "Free as the air" may in time be warped into a legal maxim of great value. The incorporation of a line of airships in Mexico brings us face to face with another great problem. International traffic from one inland port to another means an immense in crease in the number of customs bureaus, or smuggling and immigration will be unre strained. The possibilities of this are appall ing. Countless questions present themselves. For instance, if a balloon is left over a hydro gen retort and springs up over night, does it thereby become a frttctus uaturalisf' And has the hydrogen maker a mechanic's lien? Will it be possible to acquire an exclusive franchise between certain points, so as to shut out competing lines? What will be the position of the Interstate Commerce Commission? A careful study of the lives and works of Aurora, Icarus, Phaeton and Darius Green fail to shed any light on the intricacies of the situation. But it is submitted that the subject de mands immediate attention, and that some competent jurist should treat it.
