The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-12-04

sounded like a collision of trains loaded
with coal-oil cans.
"a second later 1 heard two voices down
the gulch crying Help. helpP | went
down there with the lantern and found
this affair"
Mr.. Laplace says that the ship could not
have been built near this place for there
are no trees there to conceal it and he
knew every inch of the country therea.
bouts.
He is sure that the airship came from a
distance but how far he is unable to say.
He says that as soon as the inventor
learned that ha wss about to telephone to
town from the Almshouse, he skipped
out Tor the city, but not before
the two had stripped the
wrecked vessel of all the electric ap-
pliances and storage batteries, so as to
prevent curious outsiders from getting an
idea of the theory and principles they are
working on.
The machine adheres, in a manner, to
the usual cigar shape. 1t is about forty
feet in length and is built of galvanized
sheet steel.
The main body>or hull of the contriv-
-
diameter and twenty feet in length.
Attached with rivets and thoroughly
soldered to the body are two metal cones
each ten feet in length.
Two eight bladed fans. each few inches
over six feet in diameter, are located on
top of the body, and are evidently capa-
bic of tremendous speed.
The vessel Is fitted with huge pro-
peller, also eight-bladed, which is fur
nished with power from a steel shaft run
ming to the center of the hull.
A similar shaft runs forward and pro-
trudes through the end of the front cone,
and to this shaft the rudder or steering
apparatus Is attached.
In the center OF the ship lies the secret
which its builder refuses to thoroughly
explain-the vessels motive power.
He acknowledges the power to be an in
tricate electrical apparatus, run by storage
batteries and connected by means of
worm and cogs TO the driving gear.
He also says that the storage
batteries are capable of carrying sutfi-
Gent electricity to run incandescent lights,
one of which, the aeronaut said, is always
brightly burning when the aerial machine
is in motion.
Buoyancy is produced by gas generated
within the hull by means of muriatic acid
and other chemicals.
The gas has a nauseating odor and
fumes which leave a sweet taste on the
lips and produce drowsiness.
1t does not seem to be a common gas.
What its capacity as lifting gas is, how
ever, another proposition.
1t must be unusually great as the air
ship, built of sheet steel. carrying fans, a
propeller, electrical apparatus and two
men, weighs many hundreds of pounds.
The gas produces sufficient buoyancy to
almost lit the ship and its load from the
ground.
Afler being filed with gas the
top fans are revolved at great
speed. and after the machine
is lifted few feet above the earth the
propeller is set going and, the navigators
say, the machine sails away.
The machine sailed quite distance, &C
coIding to its builders testimony, before
it woke the neighborhood with the
thunderous rattle of its impromptu land
ing.
1t was stripped of all its electrical ap-
paratus and the inventor, who risked his
life in order to perfect the machine.
skipped away in the dark and hid away
his treasured secrets.