Piccard in Transit

Professor Auguste Piccard, ecstatic Swiss voyageur of the stratosphere (TIME, Aug. 29), kidnapped his neighbor's dog fortnight ago, had all the dog's teeth pulled. To the astonished neighbor the professor explained: "I looked up my legal rights and found that I was justified." Professor Piccard's motive was fear that the dog might bite the Piccard children, whom he left behind in Brussels last week as he started a tour of the Western Hemisphere to lecture. Mme Piccard, grumping bitterly over the interruption of her home life, and two of their five children accompanied him to Paris, through the gritty tunnels of Normandy to bleak Le Havre, waved forlornly as a big liner carried their hero down the barren harbor toward the vast Atlantic. Last they saw of him was his long arms gyrating, the wind blowing his wild hair crazily.

Before sailing Professor Piccard told the Press some new things about himself. He had been, the New York Times correspondent wirelessed, "Dr. Einstein's leading pupil when the latter taught at the University of Zurich, and at that time Dr. Einstein asked his collaboration in carrying on experiments in making instruments for measurements with precision of radio-activity and electromagnetism in liquids. The instruments which Professor Einstein used were invented by Professor Piccard, and Dr. Einstein has cabled seeking an appointment with him on the Pacific Coast. Professor Piccard [born 1884 at Basle, Switzerland] was also one of the first scientists to verify the Michelson and Morley experiments [performed first in 1887] that gave rise to the Einstein theories."

Professor Piccard has "invented a rocket" which he calculates can travel through the stratosphere at five kilometers a second. Five kilometers a second is the speed at which sound travels through solid iron and 15 times the speed at which sound travels through air. The Piccard rocket, when perfected, he figures should carry mail and passengers across the Atlantic in less than a half-hour.-

After hearing of the despatch Professor Piccard check-reined Pegasus, said that he merely hoped to meet Dr. Einstein, among other eminent scientists, in the U. S.

That he may be adopted by an Indian tribe and given a feather headdress, delights the gangling physicist from Brussels. What he has heard concerning Manhattan terrifies him. Cried he last week: "Of the stratosphere I am not afraid. But what those journalists will do to me ... !"

*Avions Farman, French plane builders, have followed Professor Piccard's suggestions for the secret construction of a sealed cabin plane which is supposed to travel 450 m.p.h. at 10 mi. altitude.

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