THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



loon from a bamboo saddle. But an accident soon 

 destroyed this balloon, and a fifth was hastily con- 

 structed. With this the enthusiastic aeronaut showed 

 that he was ahnost within grasping distance of the prize 

 in a series of sensational flights between the first part of 

 July and the first week in August. The tower was 

 actually rounded, but on the return trip the balloon 

 collided with a high building in the Rue Alboni and was 

 wrecked, the escape of the aeronaut without a scratch 

 being little short of miraculous. 



Nothing daunted, the inventor began the construc- 

 tion of Santos-Dumont No. 6 immediately, finishing 

 it just twenty-eight days after the construction of 

 No. 5. A peculiarity of this balloon was that it was 

 barely self-sustaining except when forced through the 

 air by the propeller. The long cigar-shaped gas-bag 

 was relatively small, and was filled to its limit of capacity 

 with gas, while the lifting power was counterbalanced 

 by the operator, car, engine, and ballast, so that the 

 entire structure weighed practically the same as the air 

 it displaced. At the stem was a powerful propeller. 

 Obviously, then, if the long spindle-shaped machine 

 was tilted upward at the forward end, and the propeller 

 started, it would be driven upward; while if the for- 

 ward end was lowered the propeller would drive it 

 downward. If it was balanced so as to be perfectly 

 horizontal, it would be forced forward in a horizontal 

 direction. Deflections to right and to left were obtained 

 by the ordinary type of vertical rudder; and thus any 

 direction could be taken. 



To obtain the desired angle of inclination, Santos- 

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