The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-11-10
AERIAL NAVIGATION NEAR,
COUNT ZBPPELIN'S SUCCESS GITES
 NEW HOPE.

the Same Lines for Thirty Years
 Plans for the Future.
 Since the first balloon trip was made
 the great problem of aeronautics has
 been to achieve that same control over
 a ship of the air that the sailor has
 over the ship in the water. The pro-
 blem was twofold; it required the
 achievement of propulsion and of d.
 rection. In the aggregate millions or
 dollars, hundreds of years and scores
 of lives have been devoted to the solu-
 tion. From time to time announce
 lnent has been triumphantly made of
 an airship that could be steered, but
 single trial of the contrivance has end-
 ed in failure at the best or disaster at
 the worst. -Of late investigators have
 turned from the idea of the bafoon to
 that of the soaring apparatus, seeking
 to initiate the bird rather than the
 steamship in their efforts to navigate
 the air; but one student of aeronautics
 steadfastly held to the line of the gas
 airship and now, in the closing year Of
 the nineteenth century, Count Zeppe-
 lin announces to the world that the dl-
 rigible airship is a demonstrated fact.
 Two successful flights form the basis
 of Count Zeppelin's assertion, which is
 universally accepted since his most
 recent experiment on October 1T at
 Friedrlchshafen, a German town on
 Lake Constance, In each he demon- strated that his airship could be raised,
 lowered and steered in any direction at
 will while carrying five passengers
 This amounts, broadly speaking, to this That the first step forward has
 been made in aerial navigation since the flight of the first balloon. At the
 beginning of ballooning it was shown
 that the great gas bulb could be raised
 or lowered to some extent in accord
 ance with the will of the operator. In all the years since no man has succeed ed in controlling it's lateral movements Or overcoming the pressure of the air
 currents until the German count built his huge craft What remains of the problem now is simply matter of
 mechanical ingenuity-to tighten the structure of the airship while preserv- ing its strength, and to increase the motive power without adding materi- ally to the weight of the engines.
 More time, thought, endeavor and money have been put into the Zeppelin airship than into any previous enter prise of aerial navigation. It is thirty years since Count Zeppelin, an officer in the German army, first turned his attention to it as an engine of war which should render the nation in possession of it irresistible by enabling its officers to scout without fear of the enemy's fire. From that time up to the present he has been at work with little intermission upon his great idea, | spending his wealth lavishly in eXperi- ments which were for the most part, failures; but failures of the kind that lead to success His constant endeav- or was to find structure which should [ be light, yet firm, and properly bal anced, and to supply it without much L added weight with motors capable of . driving it through the air. He long ago made up his mind that to be of practical value his airship must be able ! to attain a speed of more than fifteen | miles an hour since the currents in the upper regions of the air, where he pro- poses to operate, are so often of that | or greater velocity that a contrivanee unable to withstand them would be useless. In the meantime he did not take the world into his confidence, and the many aeronauts in various parts of the world who, like Hargrave of Aus Lralia, Chanute of this country and the ll-fated Lilienthal of Germany, were following the line of soaring flight by means of aeroplanes, were inclined to look on him as a visionary who would only add one more to the already long list of failures.
 It was not until two or three years ago that the world heard about Count airship. Then what it heard vas not definite; being the general in formation that the biggest balloon ever built was nearing completion in a boat louse on Lake Constance, balloon bigger than man-of-War. On July 1 If this year such of the public as ,hanced to be in the vicinity of Lake Constance or had come thither in ex- ton of the event had opportunity # verifying the various rumors about he so-called balloon What they saw, IS the great structure was moved out rom it's floating boathouses for the lrSI tune, was g IrameWOfK that ooked like cigar four hundred and wenty feet long and thirty-eight feet n diameter except at the tapering nds. At the side were propellers and t each end big, fin-like protuberances which were to serve as rudders. It vas not like any balloon that any of he spectators had ever before seen, nd, indeed, it was not strictly speak, ng a balloon but a series of balloons, eventeen of them in all inclosed in a rame of aluminium trellis work. That ay no flight was attempted on &C., ount of the wind. On the evening of the following day , he airship made the first really suc- , essful air trip on record. Released , rom the cables that anchored it to the arges it rose quietly and so steadily nat the swifness of it's flight was ardly appreciable to the thousands , 'ho watched it. When it had reached I' | n altitude of between twelve and thir- zen hundred feet It's upward progress as checked, for that is the air stra- nm in which it is expected that most I the travelling will be done. Then Q 1e manoeuvres began. Beneath the I, 1dy of the balloon hung two alumni um cars, one about one hundred ffet t l.. q Il