72 BALLOONS, NAVIGABLE. 



BAPTISTS. 



gain of three, or 69 members, about one half 

 of them Serbs, out of the 110 elected. But the 

 Moderate Opposition and the club of " Savages," 

 or independent members, dwindled to almost 

 nothing, while Dr. Starchevich's following in- 

 creased to 25. The agitation in the country 

 grew more intense. Local officials were re- 

 moved and replaced by Government commis- 

 sioners in many places. In Agram the petty 

 state of siege was proclaimed. The new Diet 

 was opened September 30. The transaction of 

 business was a greater impossibility than be- 



fore. On the 24th of October all the members 

 of the Radical Opposition were removed and 

 excluded from the House by gendarmes. The 

 introduction of Hungarian laws into Fiume fur- 

 nishes an additional cause of irritation in Croa- 

 tia. Joint deputations were recently appointed 

 to adjust the matter; but, as the Croatians de- 

 manded that Fiume be restored to Croatia, the 

 deputations separated without accomplishing 

 anything. Another grievance is the alleged 

 injustice to Croatia in the adjustment of the 

 financial accounts of the monarchy. 



B 



BALLOONS, NAVIGABLE. Experiments in ae- 

 rostatic navigation, made by Capt. Renard, 

 the director of the French military ballooning 

 establishment at Meudon, and Capt. Krebs, his 

 assistant, were more successful than any pre- 

 vious attempt. The first to apply his ingenuity 

 to the problem was Henri Giffard, who ex- 

 perimented with steam in 1855. In 1872 Dupuy 

 de L6me attempted balloon-steering by hand- 

 power. In 1883 Frederick A. Gower, an 

 American, in France, succeeded in guiding a 

 fish-shaped balloon, of 2,500 cubic metres ca- 

 pacity, with a bronze steam-engine of five-horse 

 power, consuming petroleum gas. The same 

 year Tissandier experimented in a distaff- 



of the water. In the Meudon experiments the 

 balloon had a length of 50*42 metres, a diam- 

 eter of 8*40 metres, and a cubic capacity of 1,864 

 metres. It was filled with hydrogen gas, and 

 sustained a weight of 2,000 kilogrammes. The 

 motors were Faure accumulators of ten-horse 

 power, capable of working at such a rate for 

 four hours. In the first ascension the propul- 

 sive power was sufficient to drive the aerostat 

 forward against a light breeze, which blew at 

 a speed of about 18 feet a second. The trial 

 took place Aug. 9, 1884. The balloon rose to 

 the height of about 180 feet, took a straight 

 course to the appointed goal, over four miles 

 distant, described a curve of 300 metres radius, 



EENARD AND KREBS 8 BALLOON. 



shaped balloon with a Siemens motor, actuated 

 by a bichromate battery. The brothers Tis- 

 sandier have worked as assiduously at the 

 solution of the problem as the officers in the 

 Government works. The constructive features 

 and mechanical principle are very nearly the 

 same in both balloons. That of Messrs. Renard 

 and Krebs is elliptical, with conical ends, but 

 with the forward end larger and blunter than 

 the other; while the Tissandier balloon has 

 symmetrical ends. In the latter the propelling 

 screw is behind the car. The Renard-Krebs 

 balloon has a propeller in front and a rudder 

 behind. The steering is accomplished chiefly 

 with the screw, which has a lateral play like a 

 ship's ^ rudder. The same principle has been 

 tried in steamships to increase their steering 

 capacity, but is impracticable, because no metal 

 is strong enough to withstand the resistance 



and sailed back to the starting-point, descend- 

 ing in a slanting direction to within a few feet 

 of the earth, where the machine was reversed 

 and stopped, and the balloon pulled down by a 

 rope. A second trial was a failure, because a 

 stronger wind was blowing, and one of the 

 storage batteries refused to work ; but a third 

 ascent, made in November, was entirely suc- 

 cessful. The balloon went through evolutions 

 in the air and descended at the point of depart- 

 ure, as in the first voyage. 



BAPTISTS. I. Regular Baptists in the United 

 States. The "American Baptist Year-Book" 

 for 1884 gives statistics of the regular Baptist 

 churches in the United States, of which the 

 following is a summary: Number of associa- 

 tions, 1,196; of churches, 27,913 ; of ordained 

 ministers, 17,327; of members, 2,474,771; of 

 Sunday-schools, 15,939, with 134,395 officers 



