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months sixty-five balloons left the be- he made an eight hours' journey. In

sieged city, carrying in them important despatches to the French army scattered throughout the country. As nearly all of them had carrier-pigeons on board, communication was thus established between the besieged and their friends outside. Although the Germans knew this, and also that the Dictator Gambetta had managed to make good his escape by this means, they were powerless to prevent it. Their cannon-balls failed to reach the floating targets in the air, and only some four or five of the balloons fell into their hands.

Graf Zeppelin, who previously had some experience in military ballooning during the American Civil War, having made his first ascent in a captive balloon at St. Paul, in Canada, was an eyewitness of these siege balloons, and was so impressed with their great possibilities in time of war that immediately on retiring from the army he began those experiments which have made his name famous.

After practising with air-propellers for driving small boats on Lake Constance, he built his first air-ship. The initial trials were only partially successful, and had to be given up entirely in October 1900 through lack of funds. For an interval of five years nothing was heard of it until, on again making its appearance, the airship fouled the tugboat used for bringing it out of its hall, resulting in serious damage, and necessitating its re-. turn to the repairing shed. On the 17th January 1906 it rose to a height of four hundred and fifty metres. Suddenly the motors stopped working, and the air-ship was driven inland, where during a storm it was almost completely wrecked.

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the same dirigible he voyaged into Switzerland and back on the 1st July of the next year, remaining in the air twelve hours. Encouraged by this success, he set out on the 4th of the following month, with twelve passengers on board, to attempt the longdistance test required by the Government before buying his invention. Soon after the start one of the motors broke down, and after five hours a landing had to be effected to discharge ballast and five of the passengers. The defect was temporarily repaired, but the motor stopped again on the morning of the 5th. A strong wind was blowing, against which it was impossible to make progress with only one motor, necessitating a second landing. In the course of twenty-one

hours a distance of six hundred and fifty kilometres had been covered. Unfortunately a violent thunder-storm arose before the motor could be put in order, and the air-ship was driven from its anchorage before the wind on to some fruit-trees. The force of the impact and the electricity generated by the friction ignited the gas collected between the inner balloons and the outer covering, causing a terrific explosion, and in a few seconds the whole structure was totally destroyed.

Disheartening as the disaster proved, ruining the patient toil of many years, it was nevertheless accompanied by good. It proved the turning-point in the fortunes of the inventor, for the sympathy of the nation went out to him, and the financial support of which he stood so much in need was immediately forthcoming. On receiving official information of what had happened, the Government telegraphed to the Graf twenty-five thousand pounds, a public subscription was opened without delay which realized over two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and a limited company

for the building of air-ships of the Zeppelin type was formed, having a capital of one hundred and fifty thou sand pounds.

Out of the public funds the Zeppelin I. was built. While it was still making its trials the Kaiser and various members of the Imperial House went for lengthy trips, and expressed their great satisfaction at the ease with which it could be manceuvred in the air. Later it performed the journey from Lake Constance to Munich and back, and has now passed into the possession of the military authorities to do service at the fortress of Metz, under the charge of the air-ship battalion.

From the wreckage of the exploded air-ship was constructed the Zeppelin II., in which the journey from Friedrichshaven to Berlin and back was undertaken. Though unfavorable weather conditions prevented the capital being reached, and an accident on landing to take in a fresh supply of benzine almost ended in disaster the career of Zeppelin II., this remains the record performance up till now accomplished in any dirigible balloon.

It

was in the air for no less than thirtynine hours, during which it travelled in a given direction close upon seven hundred kilometres.

Meantime Zeppelin III. has appeared, and promises to do better than all its predecessors, and prove a great advance in the science of aeronautics. Work in connection with other Zeppelin air-ships is so far advanced that as soon as the halls, or harbors, as they are called, are ready it will only be necessary to put the parts together. As one of the bylaws of the Zeppelin Company forbids the use of their airships outside of Germany, and as all air-ships are placed unreservedly at the disposal of the military authorities in the event of war, it can readily be understood that in a short time the nation will be in possession of a large air-ship fleet.

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In appearance the Zeppelin air-ship resembles a huge, sharp-pointed, sixteen-cornered column, one hundred and thirty-six metres long and thirteen metres broad, floating horizontally in the air. Hollowed aluminium tubes form the ribs, which are held together by cross-beams and steel wires, so that on our looking into the interior it resembles the spokes in a cycle wheel. By this means the interior is divided into eighteen parts, each of which contains a separate gas-balloon. Hence it is possible that in warfare a bullet may enter one of the balloons, causing the gas to escape, and still not bring the air-ship down or put it out of action, since the remaining seventeen balloons would most probably remain intact. Over the whole framework is stretched a waterproof covering of specially prepared cotton-wool, having a silvery sheen and polished to offer less resistance in the air.

Underneath is a long carrier, like a ship's keel, for strengthening the structure and supporting the two aluminium cars, one fore and the other aft. Connecting these is a covered-in way, along which a little truck runs on rails for carrying the tools and implements necessary when travelling. As the weight in the truck is very considerable, it is employed as moving ballast, and plays a most important part in ascending and descending. When the truck is near to the aft cage the bow naturally rises, and when the truck is pushed forward the bow dips, shaping the course downward.

This middle way is a special feature of the Zeppelin air-ship, and is fitted out more comfortably and luxuriously than a first-class railway carriage. It has celluloid windows at the side and in the floor, through which one may look down upon the moving panorama beneath. Both ends are closed by revolving celluloid doors against the cold wind, and the interior can be electrically heated and lighted at night. On

either side are upholstered seats and collapsible dining and writing tables. Swung from the roof are hammocks in which the crew may sleep between watches.

In each car is a Daimler benzine motor of one hundred and five effective horse-power. The front motor drives two air-propellers, port and starboard of the bow, while the rear motors turn the propellers situated right and left of the stern. The steering and working, the regulating of the airflaps, gas-valves, and distributing of the water-ballast-no sand-ballast is used are all managed from the fore car. In it are also found the charts and compass, and a number of sensitive instruments for measuring speed, wind velocity, and such like, together with a barometer for showing automatically the varying heights at which the air-ship is travelling.

Jutting out from the bow and stern are fin-like projections for balancing and giving stability to the air-ship. Together with these are the vertical and horizontal rudders; the latter for ascending and descending, the former for steering the course. These are mounted on light frames covered with stout canvas.

This is by far the most comfortable of the three distinct types of air-ships in Germany, which are the Zeppelin, or rigid type; the Gross, or semi-rigid; and the Parsefal, or flexible. Though the first, which is the largest and most expensive, is the most popular, experts are divided in their opinions concerning its merits or advantages over the others. Experience seems to prove that each type has its own advantages, and the likelihood is that when airship fleets come to be composed after the manner of naval fleets all three systems will be employed; the Zeppe lin being the battleships of the air, the Gross resembling cruisers, and the Parsefal resembling torpedo-boats for

This

scouting and reconnaissance. last is the cheapest; next to it comes the Gross, costing ten thousand pounds; while a Zeppelin amounts to seventeen thousand pounds. According to this computation, something like two hundred and fifty air-ships can be built for the price of one first-class battleship, which means that an almost limitless air-fleet could be kept up at a fraction of the present naval outlay.

The Gross air-ship is called after its inventor, the commander of the airship detachment of the German army. It contains four thousand five huadred cubic metres of gas, and is propelled by two motors. Under the cigar-shaped body is a light framework to which the cage is hung. This framework holds the balloon firm; hence its name-semi-rigid. The collapsible Parsefal can be transported in carts when emptied of its six thousand seven hundred cubic metres of gas. In shape it resembles a sausage, and the cage, in which ten people can be accommodated, is hung on to the balloon by broad bands. A distinct novelty of this system is the method of ascending and descending. In the bow and in the stern are small balloons which can be filled with air from the cage and emptied at will. On filling the stern balloon, that part of the body is made heavier, and in consequence the bow rises, pointing upward, in which direction the air-ship is driven by the motors. For landing. the reverse process takes place; and for balancing on high, both air-balloons are emptied.

Both the Gross and the Parsefal may be seen almost any day over Berlin, where they are stationed. They have been tested at army manoeuvres, and have given the greatest satisfaction in scouting, reconnoitring, and carrying despatches. Quite recently the Gross was supplied with a special

system of wireless telegraphy, by means of which it is hoped to establish constant communication with headquarters and also with other airships of the fleet.

At present this airship fleet consists of three Zeppelins, three Parsefals, and two Gross dirigibles. To these must be added a number of air-ships built or building by private companies. Most important among these is the monster measuring one hundred and thirty-five metres long by sixty metres wide now being built at Mannheim. Nineteen thousand cubic metres of gas will be required to fill it, and the four motors of between five hundred and six hundred horse-power are intended to drive it at a speed of fifty to sixty kilometres an hour.

This air

ship is to be ready in the autumn of this year, and, according to the model, is to be a combination of all the three systems, though it will be lighter than the Zeppelin, which weighs as heavy as the sleeping-car of a corridor train.

Another air-ship promised for the autumn, of which great things are expected, is the Siemens-Schuckert, on which a staff of engineers has been employed for the last two years. It is of the Parsefal type, measuring one hundred and twenty-five metres long by thirteen metres broad, and having a gas-holding capacity of thirteen thousand cubic metres, divided between two gas-bags made of specially prepared three-ply cotton-wool. In the fore cage there are two Daimler motors of one hundred and twenty-five horse-power each, and another pair of the same strength in the aft cage. In the middle of the body is a third cage for the steering-gear and aeronautic instruments. Particular interest attaches to this dirigible, as it is expected to decide the dispute regarding the merits of the rigid and collapsible types. Experts fear the increased danger of having so much gas in one

balloon, and also draw attention to the great wastage. Yet it is a remarkable fact that all inventors add to the size and gas holding capacity of every new air-ship they build, also to its motor-power.

As has already been pointed out, it is as an instrument of war that the air-ship is regarded in Germany. All the construction going on in the country is partially financed by the Government on condition that the naval or military authorities shall have the first offer of purchasing after the initial trials.

Since its establishment in 1884, the air-ship detachment of the German army has continued to increase in importance until now it has become a recognized branch of the service, consisting of several battalions, to which large drafts of officers and men are commanded for certain fixed periods of theoretical and practical training. Hence the number of competent men is not limited to those serving at the depôts for air-ships, and a strong reserve is always at hand to man each new dirigible that passes into the possession of the authorities. Extensive practice is carried out in dropping dynamite torpedoes on targets; photographing forts and position of troops, and sending the films by means of pigeon-post to be developed and printed at headquarters; and in signalling by means of a number of balls hung over the side on a rod, especially employed in connection with artillery targetpractice.

In this the navy also takes part. Flights are made from Heligoland and Kiel, and it is suspected that the Parsefal I. and Gross I., both of which disappeared mysteriously from Berlin some months ago, are now used for this purpose. Naturally, the greatest secrecy is observed in all these preparations, and much of the experimental work is conducted under cover of the

night; yet it is clear to all who have had occasion to study the subject even from a distance that those responsible for the services of the army and

Chambers's Journal.

navy air-ships are doing all in their power to make them as perfect instruments of war as human invention can contrive.

Richard Thirsk.

AS IT HAPPENED. BOOK I.

CHAPTER III.

OLD ENEMIES.

IN OLD MADRAS

""Pon my life he has come after all!" the sick man upon the charpoy beneath the punkah in the wide bare room of Ca Sao Thomé was soliloquizing. The lapse was no symptom of his sickness-he was very sick-but the inveterate habit of a European whose intercourse with men of his color had been severed years before, and who permitted himself the use of his mother tongue in long confabulations, letting his inmost thought loose in self-communings, secure in the ignorance of his servants.

The wasted body turned painfully upon its string mattress, the lean, lined face half-hidden, fakir fashion, in an Oriental profusion of hair and beard, took on a singularly apprehensive expression as his guest entered.

The man had been effeminately handsome when in his prime; but his prime was long past. All that the at that day-extravagant and barbaric growth of hair permitted to be seen was a pair of sunken eyes veiled by tufted black eyebrows, a thin, aquiline nose, and a lofty forehead with which life had dealt hardly; it was ploughed from temple to temple with the parallel groovings of worry, vexation, and disappointment, and cleft between the eyes by the sharp imprint of temper; but laid across these disfigurements was a more lightly traced structure of vertical wrinkles due to the contraction of the brows in secret LIVING AGE. VOL. XLV.

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night horrors of self-disgust. shall see this double fret-work upon the foreheads of aged, long-sentence criminals: it gives to a countenance a singularly forbidding expression.

The lower face was clothed with a beard of some years' growth; white and full it flowed from cheeks and throat below a black down-curving moustache. This, and a V-shaped patch of ebon hair upon the lower lip and chin, dividing the patriarchal whiteness upon either side of it, gave a sinister cast to the emaciated face, with its delicate features and harsh expression.

"Remove the birds," he said, addressing a Tamil servant, who separated and caged the fighting quails and slipped silently from the room. His master turned his head with studied nonchalance to the visitor who had come in response to his urgent request, the man upon whom he had not set eyes for three years, yet whose presence he found as detestably familiar as though they had quarrelled and parted yesterday.

Yes, there he stood again, the erect, well-poised figure that owed nothing of its soldierly set-up to straps or padding, and there, bent upon him, were those experienced, uncompromising eyes, direct, unsmiling, non-committal as ever, and the firm hin and muscular lips with the capacity for restrained and courteous speech which he had tested SO often-all that he had known, line by line, and contour by

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