The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-06-27

brought the use of the captive balloon
to such degree of excellence that it's
usefulness in any extended warfare is
no longer open to question. Efforts to
construct dirigible balloon, however,
which can be so managed that its
movements will be always under salts
factory control have thus Car been in
conclusive. Various inventors have
made balloons which would sustain
themselves for good period and were
Siderable in any given direction, hut
only at low speed, and when the wind
was not too heavy.
1t has been pointed out by competent
authority that first rate war balloon
must carry three or four passengers, a
supply of explosive shells and one or
two machine guns. 1t should be capable
OF travelling at the speed of about
thirty miles an hour In calm weather,
and have lifting capacity of some
11fty-five hundred pounds, about one
third of the weight to consist of the
passengers, Instruments, arms, ex-
plosives and ballast. The Chalet
Meudon balloon, a French invention,
has made successful trips in calm
weather, but of the 4,400 pounds raised
by it only 80 pounds could be afforded
for passengers and 470 pounds for bal
last. The experiments of Professor
Langley, of the Smithsonian Institu-
ton, with his aeroplane, and others
made by Duchemin and Maxim, have
demonstrated the practicability of
making aerial flights with machines
heavier than the air through which
they fly, but 1T Is obvious that really
satisfactory results can be attained
only with a motor considerably lighter
than any now employed.
While we have been quibbling over
the expenditure of $4,000 for balloon
experiments by our signal corps, the
French military department has been
spending fully as much as $4,000 in
some years in the same direction. 1t
has maintained an aeronautical station
at Calais, and though for obvious rea-
sons much reticence has been preserved
with respect to it's accomplishment it
is known that as long ago as 1881 an
elongated balloon 165 feet long by 271a
feet in diameter was successfully
launched which in fair weather not
only reached a speed OF ten and a
IIli1GS I'LL IlouIy DuS OIi 1--WE IhlPS
out of seven returned with ease to its
starting point. This balloon carried a
car los feet long, and its propeller,
twenty-three feet in diameter, was
driven by an electric motor of nine
horse power From this point the ex-
periments went on till war balloon
was constructed $50 feet long, with a
motor Of forty-five horse power and a
propeller thirty feet In diameter. This
will carry three or four passengers
probably at the rate of about twenty
five miles an hour when all the condi-
lions are favorable. From the data OBJ
tanned from those French experiments
which have been made public, and by
applying to them the latest discoveries
in other but related fields Of engineer
ing 1t has been calculated that bal
loon $50 feet long by So feet diameter
could be so constructed as to carry pas
sengers and cargo weighing Ave tons at
speed of thirty miles an hour. The
ocular demonstration has yet to be
made, however. AS the last war in
which our inventive nation was en-
gagged introduced to the world the art
of military ballooning, 50 possibly the
present war, If it lasts long enough,
may prove to what extremes that art
can be carried.-Washingto letter in
The Boston Transcript.