CIRCLING EIFFEL TOWER IN AIR SHIP. 585 



the propeller shaft from the motor and stop the fans there is an electric 

 key. For each of the valves in the belly of the balloon there is a wire 

 end at the basket, besides still another one for the big valve in the top 

 should the balloonist wish to descend rapidly, and, yet again, there is 

 an emergency cord which tears a panel out of the silk and lets the gas 

 fairly pour out. It was this cord that Santos-Dumont pulled when he 

 chose the Rothschild chestnut trees between the Seine and the streets 

 of Boulogne. As to ballast, he has small bags of sand under his feet 

 and a canvas bag on either hand, about 100 pounds in all. Thus, it 

 will be seen that he. has several things to think about at the same time. 

 Though seemingly very complicated, this air ship that really navigates 

 the air is, after all, a simple machine, and by the, side of the wonder- 

 fully made air ships that yet do not navigate the air it is a child's toy 

 for simplicity. It is one-fourth as large as the Zeppelin balloon. In 

 fact, it is the smallest motor aerostat that has been constructed up to 

 date. The entire car complete weighs but 550 pounds. 



SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INVENTOR. 



To arrive at this result, which is conceded to be the first actual steer- 

 able air ship, Santos-Dumont has tinkered away some five preceding 

 balloons. He came to Paris expressly to make his career in the air. 

 He bade farewell to the plantation of his father, the Brazilian coffee 

 king, where as a boy he had speeded locomotives, real compounds, 

 over the premises. He abandoned these toys and took up with what 

 the French love to call the most French of inventions, flying machines. 

 He allied himself with those rich young Parisians who seek amusements 

 more chic than gilded dissipation; that is, the more intellectual, though 

 scarcely more rational, pursuit of bizarre methods of locomotion. 

 Though able to have stables, and yachts, and palace ears, they prefer 

 automobiles and balloons. The youthful Alberto began by climbing 

 Mount Blanc to see what high altitudes were like. Then, in 1898, he 

 ordered himself a balloon and called it the Bresil. It was a ludicrously 

 small affair, of not more than 115 cubic yards. He would return from 

 a trip with the balloon in his grip. But he was not content. The 

 Brazil was spherical, unsteerable — in a word, old fashioned. He put 

 the motor of his automobile into the basket, and was thus the first to 

 apply gasoline to aerial navigation. But as yet the results were not 

 important. That same fall he launched the Santos-Dumont /, the first 

 of his cigar-shaped experiments. But the weight of the basket 10 

 yards beneath made the balloon cave downward, and air ship and man 

 tumbled 500 yards to earth without getting hurt — a mere incident. 

 Next year appeared the second Santos-Dumont, of the same form, but 

 a little longer. He went up Ascension Day, became dissatisfied, and 

 began work on his No. 3. This one was 22 yards long, with a capacity 



