The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-30

Santos-Dumont before he was 12 years
 of age, drove locomotive engines fol
 pleasure and developed the taste fol
 mechanics and invention which saved
 him, coming young and rich to Paris
 from life of mere sporting leisure
 Until IS years of age, when he com.
 pleted his education at the university
 of Rio Janeiro, he remained in Brazil
 always returning in vacation time tc i the wild back country of the plantation
 where he became mighty hunter l killing wild pigs and small tigers by f preference and great snakes out of a
 sense of duty.
 1 Arriving in Europe in 1891, he made a tourist trip, and ascended Mont Blanc. A part of of 1891 and 1892 he spent be- tween London and Brighton, perfecting his English, which he now speaks as
 well and as often as French; but he al- ways returned to Paris, where in 1892 he was already driving automobiles.
 In 1894 he made short trip to the
 United States, visiting New York,
 Chicago and Boston. He did not begin
 ballooning until 1897, in the summer of
 which year he made his first ascent in COillpdlly WILL llle ldte MI Mdtliul oil.
 In the same year he made 20 others as
 tensions, a number of them unaccom-
 panied, and became reliable pilot of
 spherical balloons He has, indeed, an
 ideal figure for the sport, uniting re-
 markable strength, agility and coolness
 to his jockeys weight of scarcity 100
 pounds, For this reason he was able
 to lower the volume of the Brazil, !"
 his first spherical balloon, to the un-
 usual minimum of 113 cubic meters.
 The little Brazil was always filled
 with hydrogen, and after each ascen-
 sion he never failed to bring it back
 with him in his valise.
 This Brazilian has neither the struc- ture, the complexion nor the exuberant
 gestures of the men of his country, He
 is pale, cold and phlegmatic, even, if the words may be applied to one so &C., tive. In his moments of greatest en- thusiasm and of most lively disappoint- ment he Is always the same; and he Is as free from affection as a child. He has weakness for driving dog cart tandems, and-something which has had a vital influence over his career as a balloonist-he has been an intrepid automobile chauffeur from the first.
 He began with a Peugot roadster of ? Is horse power. He has since owned and driven half dozen automobiles of continually increasing speed and power, his longest trip without stop being taken in 1898, between Nice and Paris, and accomplished with a six-horse- power Panhard in 54 hours. Latterly he has abandoned petroleum in favor of electricity, In dainty light running American buggy, manufactured in Chicago. It serves him, he says, better than the more troublesome teuf-teuf for his morning spin through the Bois and his afternoon errands from the balloon-mak at Vaugirard to his apartment in the avenue des Champs Elysees, and from the Aero clubs ground at St. Cloud to the automobile dub in the Place de la Concorde 'I was once enomared of petroleum auto ! because of their freedom" he explains. You can buy the essence ev- erywhere; and so at a moments mo-
 tice. one is at liberty to start off for Rome or St. Petersburg. But when I discovered that did not want to go to Rome or St. Petersburg, but only to take short trips about Paris, I went in for the electric buggy.
 q got my first. idea of putting an motor under a cigar-shap- d balloon filed with hydrogen gas while returning from the Paris Amster- dam automobiles race in 1897" he said when he began giving me this inter- view. From the beginning everybody was against the idea I was told that m explosive gas engine would ignite 1 .he hydrogen in the balloon above it, md that the resulting explosion would . nd the experiment with my life, La my balloon constructor. went . o work without enthusiasm. So far . rom others convinced me that their | lotions were worth taking Up, as has been said I met with nothing but dis 
 Such a categorical statement ought % dispose of the legend of a young Maecenas of balloon builders" who does not set up himself to invent ma hines, only to judge of those which in -entors bring to him, and of the work one by the mechanics he employs" ,ol Remarks assertion that M. Santos )umond is not a man of science, but un portsman de I aerostation qui a eaucoup de cranerie Gan aerostatic portsman who has a great deal of is equally inexact. Sufficient y at home in mathematical mechanics O make the calculations which neces- arily preceded not only the construc- ion of his various air-ships, but their cry idea, sufficiently practiced and in- enious to make his own models, the oung inventor owes no more to his constructors and hired mechanics than e does to his theoretical friends.-Ster- ng Heinig in the Century.