MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



THE DIRIGIBLE BALLOON 



In the marine warfare of the future, the chief op- 

 ponent of the submarine boat will be the dirigible 

 balloon and the aeroplane, for these craft, from their 

 coign of vantage, can detect the location of the sub- 

 marine at its greatest depth. 



The mere mention of these air-craft, as matter- 

 of-fact antagonists of the submarine, suggests the 

 marvelous change that has come about in the brief 

 period since M. Santos Dumont astonished the world 

 by driving a small balloon round the Eiffel Tower, 

 on the 19th of October, 1901. It is matter of history 

 that this was the feat that first convinced the sceptics 

 of the feasibility of directing the flight of a balloon. 

 A less convincing exhibition had been made a few 

 months earlier at Lake Constance by the German 

 military officer, Count von Zeppelin. But the 

 voyage of Santos Dumont began and ended at the 

 same place; whereas Count Zeppelin's balloon came 

 to grief a little over three miles from its starting point. 



The circuit of the Eiffel Tower demonstrated the 

 possibility of directing the course of a balloon either 

 across the wind or against it. But most people were 

 skeptical as to any practical developments of so ex- 

 ceedingly clumsy an affair as a balloon; and only the 

 more visionary would have predicted that in the 

 course of a decade there would be scores of dirigible 

 balloons in the air, some of them offering passenger 

 service, and that every up-to-date nation would have 

 its flotilla of airships of war. 



The development of the dirigible balloon has been 



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