TOMORROW #3 (Autumn 1937)

TOMORROW

Vol. 1.No. 3
Autumn 1937

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CONTENTS

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Editorial Comment...................................................................2.

No More Horror.....................................................................4.
by Donald A. Wollheim

Science Marches On...............................................................7

Biology in Science-Fiction.....................................................10.
by C.R. Forster

Quarterly Cavalcade..............................................................13.

New Scheme for Amateur Authors........................................14.

Science Catches up with Fiction.............................................18.

A Rocketry Revelation...........................................................20
by H.E. Turner

Cites of the Future.................................................................23
by Herbert Warnes

Published by:
THE SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION
5 Florist Street, Leeds 2.

Editor:- Douglas W.F. Mayer

Produced by: Leeds SFA Branch

Observant readers will no doubt have already noted that this issue contains no "Leading Article". To judge from comments on previous issues, these leading articles have been one of our most popular features, and readers may rest assured that the omission is only temporary. We had hoped to devote this quarter's leading article to a consideration of what, perhaps, will be the greatest scheme for the popularisation of science fiction since Hugo Gernsback's introduction, eleven and a half years ago, of science-fiction magazines. Briefly, we had intended to describe a scheme for the inauguration of a professional British "Science-Fiction Book Club". to be run on the lines of the Left Book Club, 'The' Book Club, Religious Book Club, etc. Unfortunately, at the time of going to press, the various necessary preparations are incomplete, so that the article will be held over until the next issue but one - the Spring, 1938, issue.

The next issue, the Winter 1938 issue, will be published towards the end of January and will contain a "Leading Article" devoted to a consideration of the collecting of science-fiction magazines. A further article will describe in detail how anyone can neatly bind his magazines at very small cost.

We have not, so far, adopted the practice common to many of our contemporaries, and utilized this Editorial as a means of boosting the magazine, We wish to do so now, for a definite reason.

The Spring, 1938 issue - which commences Volume II of this magazine - and all subsequent issues, will, if our circulation permits, be published in printed form. They will be of quarto size, on good-quality paper, profusely illustrated, with a two-colour, illustrated cover. They will contain all our usual features, and many additional ones.

Please note, however, the clause about 'circulation'. Our circulation at present falls slightly short of the required value, and for this reason, we have decided that henceforth TOMORROW will be supplied, not only to SFA members, but to non-members as well. The former will, as in the past, receive their copies free, whereas the latter may obtain them for the price of 6d. (15c) per copy, or for an annual subscription of 1/9 (50 cents).

Furthermore, new readers paying a year's subscription before January 1st, 1938, will receive, in addition to the first four printed issues, the mimeographed Winter issue as well. Present readers who wish to see the magazine published in enlarged printed form - at no extra cost to them - will be able to secure this by obtaining new readers to increase our circulation. As an additional incentive, to every person who persuades two new persons to pay a year's subscription to TOMORROW, we will grant him, should he be an S.F.A. member, a quarter's free membership, or should he be a non-member, a year's free subscription to this magazine.

Remember what we have promised you - then go and secure new readers!

I was considerably amazed by the article "Horrors of Future Science" written by Prof. A.M. Low for the Summer issue of TOMORROW. That a student of science could sign his name to the statements therein seemed to me incredible.

Prof. Low's argumentation seems entirely constructed on the effect upon the present day mind of certain possibilities of future progress. If we assume that a person of today could be suddenly and without warning transplan,ted to an age a century or so further on, one could indeed understand that there might be much to horrify him. But to believe that one born and bred to the future age would be so horrified is inconceivable.

Horror is defined by the dictionary as "the painful emotion of extreme fear or abhorrence; dread; extreme repugnance". In order to be horrified, one must therefore encounter some object, condition or idea that so utterly transcends one's mental concepts as to bring forth an emotion of active antagonism. One must feel an intense distaste and immediate hate for the object of horror. This is of course coupled with an underlying fear that the object in question may affect the individual personally.

It is quite possible to believe that an individual of 1837 would be horrified at meeting a car on the road. To this 19th. century mind, the object would be something completely unknown. Its purring (or roaring) engine might seem to be on the verge of diastrous explosion. The vehicle's speed would be faster than

anything known - and so might prove too fast for the safety of the Victorian or his friends. The fumes of the petrol might hint of severe coughs or ills carried with the car. All these notions, causing horror, are themselves caused by complete lack of knowledge of the subject. We of the 20th. Century feel no such horror.

Similarly, as science progresses (and progress is always slow) the mind of the people re-aligns its codes and concepts to keep up with it. If the idea of one person's flesh being grafted on another is repugnant to Prof. Low, in 100 years the notion of letting a mutilated person remain broken and scarred will be more repugnant to Prof Low's grand-children. Indeed, one can hear them inquiring: "But WHY shouldn't the lady have another ear attatched so that she can go through life whole and happy and harmonious to the eye? And what if the ear did come from some mental case? The giver couldn't use it, and certainly one whole happy person is worth more than a dozen mindless morons.

Indeed, does it sound quite nice that a person should be compelled to go through life minus arm, or leg, or ear when that lack can be easily and perfectly remedied?

That Russian scientists amputated a dog's head and managed to keep it alive is a bit shocking at first. But intelligence immediately alleviates the shock. We know the dog was not in pain. The account states it licked the hand of one of the experimenters. It would not swallow food if in pain, and the knowledge that the sacrifice of one unthinking, unreasoning beast may result in advancing surgery and anatomical knowledge that may result in making millions of humans (and future dogs as well) happier and more complete amply excuses the violation of my codes.

The Professor's examples of mechanical means of jacking-up failing body organs fail to produce the slightest symptoms of horror. Indeed, they do produce a slght terror that anyone could possibly think of protesting against such things. God speed the time when science can cope with all emergencies and physical failures, so that a man can look forward. with confidence to a long life, unmarred by agonizing years of physical torture or loss of bodily organs. When there will be no men and women on crutches, no people with horrifying ailments or tumours. Yes, every reader of this article may, under present-day conditions, some day be incapacitated. Look up, the figures. You have all seen the cripples, the armless, the blind, the sick. Any one of you may become that. And if that does not throw a real start of genuine horror then I know nothing that will. And to learn some day that science can cure the` worst will bring a vast sense of relief and praises. But certainly no horror.

As for Prof. Low's closing-paragraphs. All these things, save for war advances, are items that, when they are brought about, will be met by the men of the future without horror. They may turn out to be dangerous, but that is not our problem. That will be the problem of those who have made them, and who, having made them, should be capable of controlling them. Natural sense of balance can be relied upon to quell excesses.

One may indeed agree with the horrors of future war. But that is no point. War has been horrible in all ages; It is the science of Applied Horror. Thus it is the one true horror of all times. But it is just as unpleasant to be hit with a

(Cont. page 9).

Working on the theory that all parents have either male or female reproductive tendencies, two Harley Street specialists have compounded a liquid which reacts on this tendency and can be used to result in either a male or female birth. Research work has now reached the stage where sex can be artificially determined with a 90% accuracy. In time, further improvements should enable the attainment of even greater accuracy.

Of especial importance in international politics is this new discovery. By this method, dictators could presumably be assured of a preponderence of male children to provide the material for fature wars. Statistics show that unless the female part of the population of a country replaces itself every generation, the birth-rate is bound to decline. The discovery would enable countries faced with population decline to concentrate on the production of females.

Without an increase in the present rate of reproduction, Britain's inhabitants will have shrunk within the next hundred years to a few million.

For some years now the so-called "plastic resins" have been used more and more for the construction of all manner of articles ranging from electric switches to wireless cabinets and furniture. Until quite recently, however, their value as chemical absorbants has been quite overlooked.

Research workers at the National Physics Laboratory have now found that certain resins which are completely insoluble in water can be used to extract all dissolved solids and even kill dangerous organisms. Thus when "hard" water containing dissolved Calcium and Magnesium salts passes through a tube containing a powdered resin made by the action of tannin on formaldehyde, all the metallic salts are removed. Similarly, if the water is now passed over another resin, made by condensing metaphenylenediamine with formaldehyde, all the remaining acidic ions will be removed, leaving the water neutral and pure.

At present, distilled water costs 2/6 per gallon. It can be made by this process, which is protected by patents, for 3d, per gallon. These absorbants can also be used for preparing drinkable water from the sea, or from saline inland lakes. Sewage can easily be purified, and it is even suggested that, by modifying the constitution of the resin, a substance will be produced that will absorb radium or gold from sea-water.

Two German scientists have recently discovered that if an electric discharge is passed through various gases, including Helium, at low pressures, and using Platinum electrodes, the product in the case of Helium contains 15% of a compound of Helium and Platinum, which is insoluble in "aqua regia" (3 parts hydrochloric acid to 1 part Nitric Acid), and has a density of 15. This statement has not yet been confirmed, but in view of the fact that compounds of Helium and Tungsten, and perhaps Mercury, are known, it is possible that such a Platinum compound might exist.

Another case of the forming of a compound by one of the six "inert" elements (Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon and Niton) Comes from U.S.A., where Prof. Harold Booth, one of the world's greatest authorities on fluorides (compounds of the active gas Fluorine), who is already credited with the discovery of 15 gases, claims to have successfully made six different compounds of Argon and Boron Fluoride.

In the excellent, much publicised, science- fiction novel, "SUGAR IN THE AIR", by E. C. Large, published. in June, the hero feeds his synthetic-glucose producing apparatus with carbon-dioxide from the chimney of a near-by power-station.

This fantastic notion has now been made a reality by Columbia University scientists, who have invented a device for absorbing carbon-dioxide from chimney gases, and solidifying it, whereupon it becomes the well-known refrigerating material, Dry-Ice.

No More Horror. (Cont. from page 6).

spike-knobbed bludgeon as to feel the effects of a death-ray. War of the future may bring more extensive horror but no more intense. That is one of the things that science-fictionists, among others, should strive to eliminate. War can be done without and MUST be done without if we are to survive, women in the fighting line are no more horrible than men. A man with a bullet in his guts feels pain as fully and as keenly as a woman. To differentiate between sexes in warfare is ridiculous frumpery.

(Cont. page 17).

Biology is a branch of science that has seldom received from science-fiction magazine authors the attention it deserves. It is true that at various times authors and editors have conspired to inflict upon us stories of biological monstrosities.

These have been deservedly unpopular. The methods used in creating the monstrosities - - X-rays, cosmic rays, rays of the author's imagination, grafting, growth of protoplasm, etc, -- seldom justify the results obtained. Gland stimulation is more scientific, but again possible results are usually grossly exaggerated. Dr. Lemkin's story, "The Isle of Gargoyles", and "The Master of the Genes" are good examples of what can be done along these lines “without placing too great a strain upon the credulity of the reader.

Another type of story which can be classed as biological is that, in which the balance of nature is upset, either through human interference or from natural causes. The usual result of such a plot is an insect menace. But again, imaginations run wild. Authors are not content to let their insects increase in numbers only; they must also increase in size and intelligence (as opposed to instinct), as in "The Astounding Enemy". Probably fhe best story with this basic plot was "The Invulnerable Scourge" in which a biologist bred a flying beetle of enormous appetite and reproductive capacity, which was immune to all the natural checks upon insect pests. The story had the added virtue that the menace

was not overcome by some improbable ray or radiation, but by evolving and releasing a parasite that could prey on the insects.

The old-time writer of interplanetary adventure - the Edgar Rice Burroughs type - evolved the flora and fauna of alien planets according to the whims of his imagination or the exigencies of the plot. Of late years, however, authors have been attempting with varying degrees of success to show in their portrayal of life on other planets, the influence of environment upon the evolution of organisms.

John W. Campbell, for example, has brought forward in several of his stories some interesting and plausible ideas on the manner in which the human race might adapt its self to other gravities, atmospheres, and climates. But the late Stanley G. Weinbaum was the one author who consistently gave biology a square deal. "The Adaptive Ultimate" and "Proteus Island” were purely biological, and all his interplanetary stories had a biological gackground. What organisms, for instance, could have been better adapted to life on a dry, frigid, thin-atmosphered planet than Tweel, the Barrel People, the Pyramid Monster, and the Dream Beast? His convincing portrayal of alien life was Perhaps the chief charm of his interplanetary stories.

One side of biology ,has been almost entirely neglected by authors - - the side that from the point of view of humanity is the most important; that is, the possible effect upon society if biology could be exploited in the same manner as physics and chemistry have been and still are being exploited. Science-fiction readers

have occasionally complained that many authors place their characters in a future that is mechanically more advanced than our own era but is identical with it socially. These readers believe that mechanical science cannot continue to advance without effecting great social changes, for better or worse, in our social system.

But what of biology? It is a young science as yet, being in about the same state today as physics and chemistry were a hundred years ago. However, the groundwork has been laid, and rapid advances may be expected in the future.

For instance, J.B.S. Haldane seriously predicts ectogenic birth; Julian Huxley forecasts the control of sex and growth, and the moulding of physical, and possibly mental, characteristics both before and after birth. Most biologists agree that some form of eugenic control of the quantity and quality of the population is bound to come, unless the human race is to degenerate, owing to man's interference with the course of natural selection and the partial suspension in his case of the law of survival of the fittest.

Here are the possibilities for both the main plots and the backgrounds of stories -- an almost virgin field for Utopias, tyrannies and disasters to civilisation. A very small number of authors have touched upon these subjects, e.g. Raymond A. Palmer in "Three from the Test Tube" and H.O. Dickinson in "The Sex Serum", but, as far as I am aware, only one author has taken full advantage of the possibilities: that is Aldous Huxley, whose "Brave New World", a clever satire

(Cont. page 19).

In the middle of August, SFA publishes BRITISH SCIENCE-FICTION BIBLIOGRAPHY, containing full details of over 200 books.....F. Orlin Tremaine, Editor of ASTOUNDING STORIES, accepts Honorary Membership SFA.....SFA Library of Science-Fiction books inaugurated.....1st science-fiction novel by SFA Honorary Member Prof. A.M. Low published, entitled ADRIFT IN THE STRATOSPHERE.....science-fiction burlesque entitled "Brum...to Come" broadcast from Midland Regional....."The Lost Kingdom" by Ralph Stranger and Gerald Bowman runs in MODERN WONDER.....London Branch of SFA formed at meeting of 18 members.....SFA publishes 1st issue of AMATEUR SCIENCE STORIES..... science-fiction serials by W.J. Passingham running in MODERN WONDER and THE PASSING SHOW.....Prof. A.M. Low has second science- fiction novel entitled MARS BREAKS THROUGH, published.....SCIENTIFICTION reports F. Orlin Tremaine resigns editorship of ASTOUNDING STORIES: place taken by noted science-fiction author John W. Campbell Jnr. (alias "Don A. Stuart").

New Council to govern SFA elected: result D.W.F. Mayer (47 votes); M.K.Hanson (45); W.H. Gillings (38); F. Pragnell (31); E.J. Carnell (30); L.J. Johnson (27); and K.G. Chapman (26). H. Warnes tied with Chapman with 26 votes, but stood down in latter's favour.

Los Angeles SFA Branch publishes its own organ - IMAGINATION!....Science-Fiction Convention held in Philadelphia.

What will the future bring?

(As recorded in last issue of TOMORROW, to the imaginative reader of science-fiction there is a tremendous appeal in the writing of stories himself. For the benefit of such persons was launched the bi-monthly, mimeographed magazine, AMATEUR SCIENCE STORIES. But in the formation of an Amateur Authors Circle, the new London SFA Branch has taken the idea one step further. let Circle-organiser William F.Temple, author of "The Kosso" and "Mr. Craddock's Life-Line" , explain the scheme in his own words,... :Ed.)

No story ever springs complete in an author's mind. It starts with just one idea, and sometimes swiftly, sometimes gradually, others gather round it and try to join on.

I believe one could go on building round an idea in this manner so that a sketch enlarges to a short-story, a short-story to a novelette, a novelette to a novel -- perhaps a thrree-volume one. (But for the purposes of this joint story by the members of the SFA, I think we had better stop at a 10,000 word novelette.)'

Says Geoffrey West about H.G, Wells's short-stories: "Essentially they are the offspring of the intellectual imagination, born of ideas. As a short-story writer he had only to let his thoughts play about almost anything to find himself presently peering into remote and mysterious worlds ruled by an order logical indeed but other than our common sanity."

If you have no ideas to hand at the moment let your "thoughts play about" the one contained in the following data. Do these notes stir your imagination at all? Can you see in them the beginning of a science-fiction story? Can you work them in with any ideas of your own that you have been harbouring? Have you an entirely different idea, or set of ideas, that could be worked into a story?

Send them in to W.F. Temple, 16 Dumbreck Road, Eltham, London S.E.9, England. Don't be ashamed of them, however silly or farfetched you may think them. They may suggest other ideas to us. It is guaranteed that none of your ideas will be used for anyone's personal profit. The assoclation is, like science itself, unselfish, for the general good. We want all to work together on this thing, and every little helps.

There is no great hurry. Take your time to ponder over your ideas. And send them in when you have got them straight.

SOME DATA TO SET YOU THINKING

1. Notes from "ATTACK ON EVEREST". (authenticated data).

Years before the attempts on Everest an English traveller in the Himalayas, Hugh Knight, saw a 6-foot naked man, hairy in the manner of a caveman, carrying a primitive bow. He leapt off agilely down the rocks.

On another occasion, an Italian, Tombazi. saw one of these creatures.

Col. Howard Bury, leader of the First Expedition to Everest, discovered in September 1921, imprints in the snow of a large naked splay foot with prehensile toes. ("Splay" means "turned outwards"; "prehensile" means

"capable of grasping objects"; Ed.). This was in a pass 20,000 ft, up Mount Everest. His coolie porters said this was the mark of a Devil Man, one of the Meetoh Kangmi, the Abominable Snowmen. According to the porters, they eat the flesh of men, are enormously strong and could kill a yak with one blow.

2, Memorandum.

To the Hindus, the Himalayas are the abode of the gods, especially the Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva.

3. Notes from "EVEREST 1933" by Hugh Ruttledge. (From the chapter by F.S. Smythe)

"During my solitary climb two curious phenomena were experienced...

A. "I was still 200 feet above Camp VI, and a considerable distance horizontally from it when, chancing to glance in the direction of the north ridge, I saw two curious looking objects floating in the sky. They strongly resembled kite-balloons in shape, but one possessed what appeared to be squat under-developed wings, and the other a protuberence suggestive of a beak. The two objects were very dark in colour and were silhouetted sharply against the sky or possibly a back-ground of cloud.

"So interested was I that I stopped to observe them. My brain appeared to be working normally, and I deliberately put myself through a series of tests. First of all I glanced away. The objects did not follow my vision, but were still there when I looked back again. Then I looked away again, and this time identified by name a number of peaks, valleys and glaciers by way of a mental test. But when I looked back again, the objects still confronted me.

"At this I gave them up as a bad job, but just as I was starting to move again a mist suddenly drifted across. Gradually they disappeared behind it, and when a minute or two later it had drifted clear, exposing the whole of the north ridge once more, they had vanished as mysteriously as they came."

B, Smythe describes a strong feeling that he was not alone, but was accompanied by some invisible companion. Apparently this was a friendly presence, for once Smythe involuntarily turned to offer it some chocolate.

4. Mallory and Irvine.

In the 1924 Expedition these two were last seen, through a telescope from the Base Camp, climbing stromgly towards the summit, the highest position man had been, or has since been, on Everest. A veil of mist took them out of sight. They never returned. They have never been seen since. On the 1933 Expedition Mallory's ice-pick was discovered. But no sign of his body.

No More Horror. (Cont. from page 9).

Horror is a state of mind. The future could hold horror for us of 1937 but, excluding war, it will definitely NOT hold horrors for those of the future. In all truth, it will hold less horrors than those we tolerate today.

(Reprinted from the April, 1937, issue of "POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY", by kind permission of the publishers.)

"While Frank manipulated the reins, Barney and Pomp kept up a steady and rapid fire upon the foe. One after another the cowboys dropped from their saddles. In vain they lashed their horses to overtake the Steam Horse. . ."

So wrote the author of "Frank Reade Jnr. and HIS NEW STEAM HORSE among the Cowboys" - one of the nickel and-dime thrillers that parents frowned upon, and young boys slipped away to the attic to pore over, 'forty odd years ago.

Today, many a grown-up man will recall the steam-spouting horse and other equally fantastic inventions that lent colour to the hair-_raising adventures of Frank Reade and his son; the Irishman Barney; and the negro, Ppmp, in the 200 or so weekly issues of the pulp-paper magazine that was known as the Frank Reade Library. They stamp the writer, Lee Senarens, then a young man in his 'teens, as a second Jules Verne, Writing under the pen-name of "Noname" in an era when horses pulled strect-cars and magic lanterns were- a popular form of entertainment, he lived to see science actually catch up with some of his most iamaginative flights of fancy.

Long before Sir Hubert Wilkins, British explorer, attempted to reach the North Pole in the submarine "Nautilus", the hero of the Frank Reade novels set out to break a path through the ice-floes in the electric submarine "Explorer". The first

Zeppelin had yet to make its maiden flight, and its value as an engine of war was undreamed of, when Senarens described a fighting airship in 1893. Armoured cars today used to transport valuables employ gun-studded turrets that might have been copied almost directly from an illustration for one of the Frank Reade exploits. Even the helicopter was anticipated in some measare by Senaren's "Greyhound of the Air" - a flying machine equipped with umbrella-like propellors and flapping wings.

If parents of the 'nineties had known what such "cheap-fiction" one day would be literally worth its weight in gold, they might have released their disapproval.

"Dime Novels" of the period are now prized collestors items. One hobbyist is reported to have turned down an offer of $2,000 (£400) for his collection of 191 issues of the Frank Reade series.

Biology in Science-Fiction.(Cont. from page 12).

on all Utopias, in based upon the theories of our modern experts on heredity and genetics, with just an added flavouring of behaviourist psychology.

JOIN THE SCIENCE-FICTION ASSOCIATION!

FULL DETAILS ABOUT ITS AIMS AND OBJECTS, ITS PUBLICATIONS AND SERVICES, AND THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING A MEMBER, CAN BE OBTAINED FROM:-

The Secretary, THE SCIENCE-FICTION ASSOCIATION 5, Florist Street, Leeds 3. Eng.

The Manchester Interplanetary Society was inaugurated on June 9th 1936, by a small group of rocketry enthusiasts, with its aim being the forwarding of the science of astronautics for commercial use, by experimentation or other means.

The first meeting of the society was held a week later on June 16th, when communication was established with the majority of the astronautical societies, and plans drawn for a loxygen-petrol rocket-motor. (Loxygen is the recognised abbreviation for Liquid-Oxygen; Ed.) Preparations were made for its construction, when it was learned that the use of liquid fuels in England was surrounded by such formidable obstacles as to render their use practically impossible for experimental purposes. Letters to the government proved of no avail, and reluctantly the project had to be abandoned. Members' activities were diverted to powder fuels as the only means of carrying on practical research.

Mr. E. Burgess, the President, had been experimenting with small powder rockets some eighteen months previous to the society's formation, and his experience had given him a good knowledge of the fundamental principles of rocket flight. Consequently early research was mainly conducted by Mr. Burgess and was divided into various sections, such as methods of launching, fin design and parachute release devices.

Research meetings were held in September and December 1936 and March 1937, at which rockets of varying design were tested - with varying success. A small two-step rocket fired at the December meeting proved highly successful despite the fact that it travelled straight into the gale, demonstrating that this type of rocket is quite practicable. From the trajectory and duration of flight, it is estimated that the second step attained a velocity of 120 m.p,h, travelling at a height of 300 to 350 feet, AGAINST a high wind.

During the months of September to December 1936 some 30 to 40 experimental rockets were tested, One big disadgantage of the use of fins was the large area of resistance, compared with the body of the rocket, against any opposing wind. If fired on a fairly windy day, the rockets would deviate from a vertical course and turn into the wind. One line of future research will be the study of methods to stablise a rocket in flight without the aid of fins.

However , at the March meeting we discovered that even powder fuels are surrounded with many petty limitations as to their use, and friction ensued with the police, upsetting all future plans for research. Activities were suspended for several weeks, but fortunately the charges of contravening the Explosives Act of 1875 were dismissed.

April saw the issue of the society's journal - THE ASTRONAUT, Due to this and the publicity gained from the past few weeks, the membership began to swell. At present in a duplicated form, THE ASTRONAUT will be printed after the October issue.

The following month, May, the President visted M. Robert Esnault-Pelterie, returning from Paris with renewed enthusiasm.

Then in July, Headquarters were transferred from Ashton New Road to Longford Place, Manchester, where a regular meeting room was established. The Annual General Meeting was held on July 10th -- the first transatlantic member enrolled in August -- and now activities are chiefly concentrated upon the publication of the journal. It would be injudicious at this stage to mention anything of future research beyond the fact that the greater part will undoubtably be carried out by the proving-stand method.

Above: Stanley Davies, Eric Burgess, M. Wade (photos from Harry Turner collection and not included with original fanzine. Davies later died of injuries sustained at Dunkirk - Rob)

Cities of the future will not be regarded in terms of super-structure and size; in fact cities such as we visualise today will simply not exist.

HOMES, real homes, there will of course be, but these will not be thrown together in a miscellaneous conglomeration of steel and concrete. It is much more likely that they will be found where the privileged few of today are to be found -- in spacious park- lands, or at least in surroundings congenial to their inhabitants. Many may wonder where all this room is to be found, yet even now our statisticians are complaining of a rapidly diminishing birth-rate.

Communication is one standard of judging a civilization, and with each generation the facilities for travel become more and more apparent. With the advent of the omnibus, villages quickly became linked with towns: on the other hand the city dwellers push ever outwards, and so suburbia grows. Naturally a century or so of easier and more simple inter-communication will eventually successfully depopulate the cities, leaving behind a series of factories, offices and other paraphernalia peculier to cities which will only be occupied during the working periods. It is evident that a man may have his work-place fifty or a hundred miles away from home, but a smart fourseater helicopter monoplane (£50, ex works) will convey him there in much less time than the present day conveyance from the suburbs.

So in the future we shall have, not cities, but Centres. There will be Educational Centres (possibly on the sites of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, etc ). Industrial Centres there will be also, not at all like those of today. These will include ports, as no doubt the heavier freight will even then be transported by rail and water.

Again, there will be Mining and Manufacturing places, with occasional Recreation Centres disposed in various strategic positions, where one can listen to the latest plays, view sports and enjoy many divers amusements.

Roadway travel except for goods and merchandise would be more or less unheard of, except for a few. eccentrics, such as the "hikers" of today,' who prefer this method of journeying. But by far the greater majority would be flitting around the heavens, because although interplanetary communication, even in those. days, may be far away, there is little doubt that the 'plane of tomorrow will be even more common than the cycle which is so familiar to us.

Even now we are entering into the Era of the Death of the Great Cities, so that perhaps soon, the city-breakers will demolish these great eruptions on a beautiful countryside, very much in the same manner as the slum-clearers at present busy in many of our towns.