The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-03
IT. sANros-DUMoNr.
Youthful Brazilian Now in the Pub
 lie Eye.

lie Eye.
 The balloon that is the sensation of the hour is called after a young Bra xiiian of great fortune. or rather the heir to man of enormous wealth who owns forty miles Gs private railways on nrs estateA sn Brazif. Santos-Dumoni. Jr, does not look more than sixteen, says The London Times. He seems as sitxht ana supplee as tropical cane, i has Portuguese suitability, and goes in tor Dailooning with rare enthusiasm. The steerabie balloon is much more than his hobby. Na only IS he a dar- i4.g aeronaut himseir, but the Maeeenas nf baiioon builders who convince him t1at their notions are worth taking up. To be a judge he has gone through a course or technical training under scientific experts. and may claim to rNnk In this special line as a scientist. The Santos Dumont was built at great cost to complete for the 4,0O0 pounds pfize offered by M. Henry Deutsch. the great petroleum refiner and the owner of the famous motor car Blanchette.
 Santos Dumont has an ideal figure for balIooning under the exceptional cir curustanoes in which he tried for the peutsch prize last Saturday. It is lighter perhaps than jockeys. He is So dressed as to minimize the. weight
 
 shirt and trousers. no coat or waist coat a Panama hat and linen shoes, With cork soles only. Like a jockey lie abstains from eating or drinking tor twelve hours. The aerostat was of corresponding lightness, and the car was fastened on by piano strings of caGgut. As steerabie ballooning is in its in- fancy. the committee appointed to de- nf fGra 1rix was to be given, agreed not to make them too hard. but hard enough to ulscourage quacks. The course was to he from St. Cloud to the Champ de Mars. where the balloon was to fly around the Eiffel tower and then back to the starting point. It did nearly all this. but instead of crossing the Seine and alighting where 1t had set out it fell in the park of M. Edmond de the Bois de Boulogne. In the course the balloon was pushed some distance south by current of air. The balloon Isl was obliged to put on all pressure to get back into the right direction. As lie had had to measure his petroleum by the thimbleful. this will account for hls premature descent.
 The enforced lightness of the ma chine and its motive power shows that
 
 in fine weather they cannot as yet re- piaen for purposes of general loeomo- ton motor or steam cars running on terra firma. The bird uses a quantity 4 'oi force in the down Tapping action of the wings, by means of which 1t keeps in the air. It would be hard to store q pFoportionate amount of force in a santos Dumont balloon. In descending the steerable aerostat was caught in fttnt fxS.er fRF Nran nax Edmond de Rothschild heard this he ordered the tree to be cut down so as to prevent the machinery being injur- ed When the tree fell the aerostat was found less sposted by :. the F accident that had been feared Its .enfrapped owner hopes to. make another ascent. A A few more details about the air navigate and his fmi1y. Santos Du- mont. though so juvenile in appear ance. is twenty-five years old, of French descent by his mother and the youngest of six children. His attention was called to. iocomotion on his father'5 5 estate when he was a small boy. His N&ther. who Is a coffee planter at St. PEulss. used to let him at the age of twelve. drive a steam engine from one end of the estate to the other. Nobody could be better trusted than the youngster with the management of a
 
 did nothing but drive engines. As there were four million coffee plants on the estate and nine thousand laborers he had enough to do.
 He went to school for scientific course. and then came to France to perfect himself. Here he took up mo- tor cars and steerable balloons, and has shown qualities one might look for In the United States, but hardly in South America. It would be impossible tor quack to take him in. He does not set up himself to invent machines, but only to judge of those which in- ventors bring to him and of the work done hy the mechanics he employs. He Is at the head of the special kind of baliooning that he has taken up. His rivals for the Deutsch prize are Tatin and the more famous Renard T1tin has yet to run his race. and so has Re- nard. The propelling machine of the former will be heavier and contain more petroleum than that of Santos Dumont
 Athletic sports have their reason in damp climate where human beings