592 CIRCLING EIFFEL TOWER IN AIR SHIP. 



value. He has demonstrated the fact that with a very costly and deli- 

 cate apparatus a skillful aeronaut may, under favorable conditions of 

 wind and weather, rise from a given point, make a circle and return 

 to the spot from which he started without being killed, if he has good 

 luck. The event, pleasant as it is, does not, however, mark a step in 

 the direction of the practical realization of aerial navigation. It is 

 probable that the solution of the problem of aerial flight will never be 

 reached in a way which will have any commercial value until the dirigi- 

 ble balloon idea is abandoned and that of a mechanism built on a strictly 

 mechanical basis substituted. 



