THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



familiar cigar shape, common to most modem dirigible 

 balloons ; and beneath was suspended a car carrying a 

 steam-engine that worked a screw propeller. The 

 rudder, placed at the stem just below the balloon in a 

 position corresponding to the mdder of a ship, was a 

 large canvas sail set in a frame. The envelope of the 

 balloon was one hundred and fifty feet long and forty 

 feet in diameter and contained about ninety thousand 

 cubic feet of coal-gas. To lessen the danger of igniting 

 this from the engine, Gififard arranged the chimney so 

 that it pointed downward, and suspended it some forty 

 feet below the envelope. 



On September 24, 1852, he rose from the Paris Hip- 

 podrome, and succeeded in making a headway of from 

 five to seven miles an hour in the face of a strong wind. 

 In response to the mdder his balloon performed some 

 difficult evolutions, tuming right or left at the will of 

 the operator. He continued his maneuvers for some 

 time, and then extinguishing his fire, opened the valve 

 and returned safely to the ground. This was a great 

 victory for the advocates of the dirigible balloon, and 

 was indeed a performance that has not until recently 

 been surpassed in the fifty years that have intervened 

 since that time. But despite this initial success, Giffard 

 soon renounced the field of aeronautics, and no worthy 

 successor appeared to take his place for more than a 

 quarter of a century. 



THE VOYAGES OF THE GIANT 



One of the most remarkable balloons ever constmcted, 

 and one of the most remarkable voyages ever made in 



[252] 



