NAVIGATING THE AIR 



no experience as an aeronaut, volunteered to make an 

 ascent and this metal ship-of -promise was launched. 

 At first it rose rapidly and appeared to be making good 

 progress against a strong wind ; but suddenly it stopped, 

 descended rapidly, and was smashed to pieces, the 

 aeronaut saving himself by jumping just before it 

 touched the ground. It developed later that he had 

 lost control of the machine, simply because the machin- 

 ery was too complicated for a single operator to handle. 

 On discovering this, Herr Jaegels, confused for the 

 moment, threw open the valve, causing the balloon to 

 descend too rapidly. Thus the fruit of years of study 

 and labor and the expenditure of fifty thousand dollars 

 in money resulted in only about six minutes of actual 

 flight. 



To most persons this experiment of the aluminum 

 balloon would seem to have been a dismal failure, but 

 it was not so regarded by the advocates of the dirigible 

 balloon. The flight of the balloon, to be sure, was far 

 from a success; but this was attributed to improper 

 management rather than to any inherent defect in the 

 balloon itself, or in the principle upon which it was 

 constructed. Instead of being discouraged, there- 

 fore, the school of balloonists, who had lost some of 

 their prestige of late by the performances of the flying- 

 machines of Maxim and Langley, undertook, through 

 their enthusiastic representative, Count 2^ppelin, the 

 construction of the largest, most expensive, and most 

 carefully built dirigible balloon heretofore constructed. 

 This balloon was of proportions warranting the name 

 of "air-ship." The great cigar-shaped body was al- 



[265] 



