The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-05-29


Tie presence Of an east wind did not
add to the pleasure of the occasion, and
the afternoon was chill and drear. But,
as there is an end to all things, so was
there an end to all these preparations
and to the balloon.
ROSE WITH GREAT SPEED
The supreme moment came when this
enormous, ugly-looking and maligned
airship, which has cost two-hundred
thousand marks and four years'labor,
was to be let loose in the heavens, with
it's solitary passenger, and the hopes of
a dead inventor imbedded in every la
nina Of Its glossy surface.
Such a work as this should have had
a long life. But is was not to be. Amid
the silence of the crowd 1t was let loose,
and, in spite of the enormous surface
which it presented to the wind, it rose
with great speed. The motor was
working at half speed, yet in less time
then 1t takes to tell 1t the balloon was
at the height of 800 feet fighting against
a strong wind, and ready to start for
ward on its trip above Berlin Below,
the spectators wondered how far the
balloon would go and the military men
wondered why they had thought it
wouldn't go at all.
Then came the end. Instead Of going
forward the balloon began to fall. The
ship had become unmanageable. A
belt had slipped-the driving belt
which Schartz had planned to secure
to the wind propeller-and the mex
periencd aeronaut in charge lost his
head. Had he operated the end screw
alone he would have been able to sail
along with the wind, as in an ordinary
balloon; but the multiplicity of ap-
paratus, which should have been in the
charge of several men, confused him.
1t was an awful moment to Jagels. In
that moment he opened wide the valve,
and the balloon began it's downward
trip to destruction.
The absence of the device for regulat-
ing the descent, and the need of the ap-
paratus for breaking the force Of the
fall, were among the causes of the dis
aster. The crash of the ship upon the
ground was great, and Jagels saved his
life by jumping out of the car just as it
reached the earth, getting little more
than a shaking up. He had been six
minutes in the sky, and at the end Of
his brief trip stood alive amidst the
wreck of $4,000.
The newspapers, of course, were full
of accounts Of the disaster, and people
thought that the last had been heard of
the Schwartz balloon. They jumped at
the conclusion that such a disaster
meant the wreck Of
SCHWARTZ'S THEORIES.
But in this they were mistaken Care
full and expert thought and calculation
proved, in few days, that Schwartz
was greater than those who laughed at
him. 1t was demonstrated that the
balloon was not only fully able. to carry
its own car and motor, but was also
able to carry all the parts which the
engineers had considered superfluous,
as we'll as three or four passengers and
ballast. The inventors calculations
were, in short, correct. The trial trip
also proved that Schwartz knew how
to fill his balloon, and that the appar-
atus could be controlled by the proper
number Of men. 1t was, indeed a vic
tory, and the inventors wife, as she
stood looking at the wreck of the alu-
minum balloon, must have felt that the
triumph was worth the price.
The wreck for some time lay in the
field where it fell, slowly crumbling
into bits, which the curiosity seekers
were not loath to take away. And while
the winds were playing with their vic
tim, the German government was MAX
ing arrangements for the immediate
construction of another Schwartz ball
loon. The trial had shown them that a
metal balloon was possible, and the ex-
perts now think that the aluminium bal
loon is the military airship of the fu-
ture.