Nor is the use of the kite in war limited to the services it would render in photography; it might easily do more than that, and become a most efficient and novel engine of destruction.  As has been shown, it is merely a question of carpenter work to send up a tandem of kites that will swing a heavy load high in the air.  Suppose that load were dynamite, with an arrangement for dropping it over any desired spot.  Mr. Eddy suggests that this might be effected by means of a slow match made by soaking a cotton string in saltpetre, which would be lighted on despatching the load of dynamite, and would burn at a regular rate, say one foot in five minutes, so that the length of the match could be timed to meet the necessities of the case.  On burning to its end, the match would ignite a cord holding the dynamite in a pasteboard receptacle, one side of which would fall down like the front of a wall-pocket as soon as the restraining cord was burned through; and immediately the dynamite in the box would be launched toward its destination.  Mr. Eddy has already carried out an experiment similar to this, in setting loose from high elevations tiny paper aeroplanes.  With a little practice he found he could start the slow match with such precision as to cause the aeroplanes to burst out into flight at any desired altitude.  This interesting and beautiful experiment was performed for the first time by Mr. Eddy on February 22, 1893, when he sent off from a height of one thousand feet forty aeroplanes, their forward edges weighted with pins for greater stability.

Assuming such an arrangement made for discharging a load of dynamite, Mr. Eddy calculates that, with a twenty-mile breeze, six eighteen-foot kites would lift fifty pounds of the explosive a quarter of a mile in the air and suspend it over a fort or beleaguered city half a mile distant.  It would thus be perfectly possible, supposing the wind to be in the right direction, to bombard Staten Island with dynamite dropped from kites sent up from the Jersey shore.  It is evident that, for purposes of bombardment, a tandem of kites possesses several advantages over the war balloon.  Kites are much cheaper.  Then it would be far more difficult to disable them than to disable a balloon, since they offer a smaller mark to the enemy’s guns; and even if one or two were destroyed, the others would still suffice to carry the dynamite.  Finally, the kites may be sent up without risk to the lives of those who directed them, which is not the case with the balloons.

Another interesting and important application of the modern kite has been conceived by Professor J. Woodbridge Davis, principal of the Woodbridge Boys’ School, in New York, who is one of the most famous kite-flyers in the world, in addition to being a distinguished scientist and mathematician.  It was Professor Davis who invented the dirigible kite several years ago, three strings allowing the operator to steer the kite from right to left at will or to make it sink