Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-03

der at the stern.
Add to this ETHEREAL narwhal horizontal
fins of 40 feet breadth upon each side, end
ing in movable horizontal rudder at the
stern.
Add a propeller in front, the diameter of
whose blades is slightly in excess of the
diameter of the body of the vessel, these
blades receiving the air all along the for
ward edge and discharging it over the outer
edge. Revolve this propeller at high rate,
and the ship will enter the vacuum thus
partially formed.
But the vessel must rise. Attach to an
elevator large fan of four blades, revolve
it swiftly enough, and the elevator will
ascend. Flying tops have been made on
this ancient principle. In the broad hori-
zontal fins place four of these horizontal
propellers, two on each side, well forward
and well back, and we get plenty of rising
force. When the ship reaches the
desired height. the power is disconnected
from the auxiliary propellers to the great
propeller in front, and moderate speed of
only ten miles an hour will suffice to sus-
tain at given altitude large weight upon
the lateral fins. Below this huge cigar with
its propellers, fins, its horizontal and verti-
cal rudders. is the car; very much like a
Pullman car in shape. III this car are sta
toned the electrical engines and batteries,
and there is ample room besides for ten pas
sengers, This car, attached rigidly to the
upper part of the ship, forms its solid base.
1t has six legs, in place of wheels, upon
which the whole car, weighing battery, ma
chinery and everything complete, only
$4,000 pounds, may rest
This means that the airship, ready for the
trip, weighed only five tons; the reader re-
membering that the huge aluminium
cylinder, charged with hydrogen, weighed
two tons less than nothing. 1t can now
lift and carry in the car a dead weight of
nearly hundred thousand pounds, on the
principle that small parachute can sustain
the weight of very heavy man.
The faster the ship goes the less sustain
ing tension comes upon the side horizontal
fins. AT speed of 200 miles an hour they
are not needed at all. The freight which
such an airship can carry is only proper
tional to the lifting power of the horizontal
propellers and to the power of the propel-
ling fan in front.
Construct on this principle an airship
1000 feet in length, and it would carry as
large burden as the dismantled Great East
ern once did.
''Do We start at II sharp" asked Royal
of Sergeant Willtwig "What sport the
trip will ber'
''Sportr' breathed the explorer in con-
tempt. eff had my way you boys-that
is, Mr.. Ball e1cepted-wouldn't stand
ghost of going Sport! BahI''
"Well, we're in for it; and you'll find, as
far as I'm concerned, I'll do all I can to
make the expedition success" said Roval
in manly, conciliatory way. CAT least
can analyze ioebergs."
''That's the stuff my young friend" said
the Sergeant, turning kindly face upon his
ruddy companion. "What can you do?" he
asked Jack Hardy.
81 can obey you," answered the real
estate agent, soberly.
Delighted to be upon frmer footing on
the expedition, whose import they but dimly
understood, and with the man whom thev.
understood still less, the young men fol-
lowed their chief to the airship.
The Sergeant would have been the last
man to choose these bows for an Arctic ex-
pedition. They had insisted, and the gen.
erous patron of the expedition, who con-
portance as their fitness, had consented.
But the Sergeant was troubled. Men for
such an adventure must be picked as one
would choose heroes to storm Gibraltar.
He knew Royal and Jack were bothG
unmindful of the eternal temperature,
40, 80, 600 below zero; of the endless,
crunching, jagged foes of ice; of that unique
desolation, that congealing hunger, that
solitary death! As the Sergeant silently
added some last stores to the ships outfit he
was thinking how Greely's party subsisted
for weeks on sea-fiies caught with night
mare tolls, of these diminutive crustacea it
required $500 to fill q gill measure, and