The San Francisco call., 1896-11-27
It Is to Be Used to Destroy the
City OF Havana tor the
Junta.
TEN MILLIONS is DEMANDED.
No Troub to Navigate the Sky Now
That a Perfect Siorage Battery
Is Invented.

The subject of the airship and lights
seen by the people of half dozen counties
has not lost any of the interest in the
public mind. Notwithstanding the fact
that the weather was very cold last even
ing hundreds of people on both sides of
the bay spent considerable time out of
doors looking for the mysterious zig hts to
reappear and skip across the sky.
Up to late hour no lights were seen.
and the impression was that the inventor
and his assistants were taking night off
and enjoying Thanksgiving dinner and
little rest.
The legal representative, however, says
that the men never rest, but are hard al
work improving and perfecting defective
parts OF the machinery. He promises that
ere long the public will have positive
proof that the ship exists.
Attorney w. h. II. Hart is as enIhusi-
astic over the alrship in which he is inter
ested as though the matter were that of
praise instead of ridicule on the part of
the unbelieving. He seems to be thor
oughly convinced that he has a good
thing, and if there are those who regard
the whole affair as hoax or a fake Mr..
Hart says they will have to remain in
ignorance so much longer.
That it exists and has made successful
flights he has no doubt, although he has
not seen it.
OF those who are convinced that there is
such thing as an airship Mr.. Hart said:
1t will be a matter of only a very short
time before they can say, Il told you so.'
Even if had not personal knowledge l
would be very careful about branding the
thing as fake. The position of The CALL
has been fair and impartial. 1t has sim
ply published the statements of those who
saw that which they believed TO be an air
ship, ana has made no attempt TO con-
vince the general public that these people
were either fools or had wheels in their
heads"
The attorney, in the course of long
conversation upon this all-im portant sub
ject. explained a number of features that
heretofore have not been made public. In
the first place he gave the length of the
alrship as about 125 feet and OF q
width in proportion to its length. This
corresponds to the statement of w. J.
Taylor of East Oakland. who said the air
ship he saw on Wednesday evening
looked like large whale. Another i'm
portant disclosure was that the inventor
and Mr.. Hart have already discussed a
proposition to construct another airsnip
of not over fifty feet in length, to be used
for war purposes principally.
''The one the inventor has now," said
Mr.. Hart, "is too large and uses ND too
much power in running against the wind
that is, it presents too much surface TO
the wind-and tie one we are thinking of
constructing will carry the same apparatus
and power. The amount of power now
used to operate the big airship will last
twice as long and do much more service if
applied to smaller ship"
''Do you seriously consider the build
ing of another airshlp2" was asked.
Eyes, if there is any inducement l see
in to-day's paper that the Cuban Junta
wants to purchase Cubas liberty from
Spain for a hundred million dollars.
Now our ship would secure the same re-
suits at a much less figure. 1 talked with
the inventor yesterday morning and he
said that if the Cubans would give him
s1OoOo,oOO he would wipe out the Spanish
stronghold of Cuba"
Would he demand the cash in ad.
vance or its equivalent in securitles?''
''Oh. no. The new Cuban Government
would be good for such debt. All he
would want would be the dynamite. He
would furnish the rest and do the job"
The attorney spoke OF how the inven-
tor with his airship and deadly explosive
would do the JOB with as little emotion as
though it was nest of rats instead OF
city of wealth, power and beauty. Re-
suming, he said:
elf such an agreement or contract ia
made the airship can be taken to New
York and shipped by steamer 10 Cuba
My suggestion is that it be landed not far
from the scene of operations. l advised
that a balloon be used to raise the airship
to the desired height, so as to save the
power stored IN the storage battery. When
the ship is raised to the desired height the
balloon can be cut loose and the airship go
about its business. When it gets through
dropping dynamite into Havana it would
still have plenty of power left to get back
TO where it started from.'
land the inventor will do this Job for
$40, 900. 000?"
$50 he says. He asserts that he is not
in need of money and that it will only
take about thirty days to build a smaller
airship. The material would cost consid-
erable, as aluminium comes high. He
could put the smaller ship into perfect
working order for about $25, 900 or $50, ,ouO,
and 1 believe that he will construct such
an airsh1p before long,"
The attorney was led off to the subject
OF the power used on the airship and, as
before, he said that it is electricity stored
in a stora.e battery. He has an interest,
he said-a part interest-in a new storage
battery SO light that it practically over
comes one of the greatest obstacles of
aerial navigation. Mr.. Hart continued,
saying:
For long time scientists puzzled their
heads over the question how they could
secure large amount of power without
carrying large amount of weight. This
has been accomplished in the Fargo
storage battery in which 1 am interested.
L can put in an airship a twenty horse
power battery that will not weigh over
100 pounds that will run continuously for
ten hours. 1t does not require any more