The evening times., 1896-12-03
Charles Abbott Smith, of No. Ill Polk

| Charles Abbott Smith, Of No. Ill Polk
street, San Francisco.
Inc airsmp. although IL appears from
| the working dra wings to be an entirely
unworkable device, corresponds closely
in general description tn the big snip now
said to be nightly wandering around over
the Pacific slope. 1t Is metallic cyiin-
der of about the proportions described, mas
the bird tail rudder and the movable wings
that are used partly to steady the ma
chine in il, flight aud partly TO enable II
To- rise from the ground.
Its inventor, Mr.. Sin,ga, was in Washing
ton during the past summer The patent
on the device was granted August s. At
;bat time he talked with Mr. Townsend, the
head of the division in which his patent
came and assured him thai he intended to
take n trim across the continent in his new
vessel before the snow flew.
Smith Is described by those who know
him as an elderly man, Intelligent and ap-
parentlv wealthy This iS no ms FIRST at
rempt in the line of arcOnautics. In Sep
tember, 1898, he was granteia patent tonan
observation and illuminating balloon OF
the aluminium type. and he assured DR..
Townsend that he had sold this device out
right for $4,000.
Mr.. Smiths attorney in Washington was
d b. Gailatin, but when inquiry was made
for him yesterday he could not be found
and no one who knew him knew anything
about his connection with the inventor.
In speaking of Inventor Smith and his
work, DIR. Townsend said:
What he proposes to do with his device
is nothing more than has been done by nu-
merous inventors already. The French war
balloons are perfectly under control in a
wnid up to, say, ten miles an hour. Mr.
Sinith's device Is on the general line OF one
of these propeller balloons, the only nov
city being his metal gas tank.
observation balloon we refused To grant
him the patent on the metal cylinder. as it
had been tried abroad and proven to the
satisfaction OF everyone that metal cylin-
der could not be used to replace the fabric
gas bag. He assured us. however, that he
had one Of his w orking modelsin the air for
twenty hours. SO we withdrew the objec-
ton, and he got his patent.
wHYITS LIKELY A FAKE.
LAS 10 this Californian's story. the thing
that absolutely brands II as a fake, If the
newspaper accounts be true, Is the claim OF
the inventor that he gets his buoyanCy from
an exhausted metal cylinder No one has
ever vet constructed a metal cylinder that
was light enough to rise by its own diSplace-
ment and yet strong enough to withstand
the atmospheric pressure outside a vacuum.
You can see for yourself that a metal shell
would have TO have considerab biz >trengt TO
withstand a pressure of fifteen pounds to
the inch Ii could not be made light enough
for the purpose
There is no real certainty that Charles
Abbott Smith. the real patcntee Of an i'm
practical airship, aud DR.. BENJAMIN, the
mythical manufacturer OF a practical fly
ing machine. are one and the same person.
But, rs "Dr. Benjamin" is supposed by
the San Francisco papers to be an assumed
name, the real Mr.. Smiths address, which
is given above, may serve as a clew To
some Of the California sleuths, whereby to
track to his lair this sideral wanderer, whose
nightly appearance in the moonht Cali
foruiau skies has done so much to disturb
the sleep of the good. though, perhaps, inL
aginative, people of the Golden State.