CIRCLING EIFFEL TOWEE IN AIR SHIP. 579 



Nevertheless, Santos-Dumont, with his sleeves rolled up, fixed him- 

 self once more in his basket with much the same air as a workman 



seats himself before his lathe for the day's work. His eye took a 

 careful survey of the entire air ship lest some preliminary had been 

 overlooked. He counted the ballast bags under his feet in the basket, 

 he looked to the canvas pocket of loose sand at either hand, then saw 

 to his guide rope. Everything appeared to be all right. Several 

 friends shook his hand, among them Mr. Deutsch. Count do la Vaulx, 

 with watch in hand, stood ready to begin counting the official time. 

 The chattering stopped, and the place was very still as the man hold 

 ing the guide rope awaited the signal to let go. Then the little man 

 in the basket above them raised his hand and shouted. On the second 

 the timekeeper (Count dc la Vaulx) called off 6.41, and man and balloon 

 woidd have to be back by eleven minutes after 7. 



At first it did not look like a race against time. The balloon rose 

 sluggishly, and Santos-Dumont had to dump out bag after bag of 

 sand, till finally the guide rope was clear of the trees. All this gave 

 him no opportunity to think of his direction, and he was drifting 

 toward Versailles; but while yet over the Seine he pulled his rudder 

 ropes taut. Then slowly, gracefully, the enormous spindle veered 

 round and pointed its nose toward the Eiffel Tower. The fans spun 

 energetically, and the air ship settled down to business-like traveling, 

 it marked a straight, decided line for its goal, then followed the chosen 

 route with a considerable speed. Soon the chug-chugging of the 

 motor could be heard no longer by the spectators, and the balloon and 

 car grew smaller and smaller in its halo of light smoke. Those in the 

 park saw only the screw and the rear of the balloon, like the stern of a 

 steamer in dry dock. Before long only a dot remained against the sky, 

 but the clot was still moving. Steadily it neared the shadowy obelisk line 

 which was Eiffel Tower, then scarcely visible in the heat mist of Paris. 

 Suddenly the dot vanished behind the tower, thus bringing together 

 man's two ways of getting into the air, the one from a century just 

 closed, the other from a century just beginning. 



To the throng waiting in the park the dot seemed blotted from sight 

 for a long while, but at last they could distinguish it emerging from 

 the foggy ladder-shape outlined against the sky. Thev could not tell, 

 however, whether it had really gone around the tower. If Santos- 

 Dumont had not doubled the tower, then the greater interest in his 

 return was lost. It would be no longer a race. Still the people 

 kept count of the minutes as they watched the speck grow larger and 

 larger, and gradually evolve into the form of an air ship. The morn- 

 ing sun caught on the burnished copper of the petroleum reservoir, 

 and the man could be seen in his car, and then a messenger in an auto- 

 mobile raced up to the park gate. He brought the marking of the 

 official timekeeper on Eiffel Tower, and his announcement laid all 



