BALLOONS AS AIR-SHIPS. 



To float by its own lightness, it must be 

 very large for its weight, and therefore weak. 



To move swiftly with so large a bulk it 

 must have powerful and therefore heavy motive 

 apparatus. 



It must be, in four words, heavy and light, 

 weak and strong. 



The problem of conquering the air by balloon 

 air-ships is therefore beyond solution. 



Not that the more general problem, that of 

 constructing practicable air-ships, is insoluble. 



But it must be attacked by means which 

 are not inconsistent with each other to the 

 extent of being paradoxical. 



Nature herself is a useful guide to the only 

 possible method of solution. 



The only natural instances of floating in the 

 air are such as that of the dandelion seed or 

 the small spider suspended by a long thread 

 which it has itself spun, and which is blown 

 out by the wind. But these are cases of merely 

 passive floating, at the mercy of the air, which, 

 if it blows out to sea, will inevitably take the 

 passengers there too, unless they touch ground 

 first. And, indeed, these are not even cases 

 of floating, in strict exactness. In an absolutely 

 still air these objects would all fall straight 

 to the ground. They only travel because 

 currents of air, some of them being accidentally 

 up-currents, carry them up and away faster 

 than their very small weight carries them down. 



