The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1904-12-15
SF7 RATJ{! I{c!o!INING is ONLY A Sp Spo9RFT1
W\@ so SAYS COUNT DE La VAUL LEX lll

To talk about flying machines to
Count de la Vaux, is like waving a
red rag to a bull AS a dirigible ba-
loonist he holds the worlds record
for distance and speed. But he has
no use for flying machines, so called,
with a view to their commercial devel-
opment, in spite of all the experiments
Of Santos Dumont, Prof. Langley and
others to the contrary.
eIn the very. very, very. very far
distant future" said the Count. with
a cresendo accent on the very" and
a shoulder shrug that suggested an
eternity, there may be flying ma
chimes, but not now, not now
With the Count ballooning is some
thing more than fad. He started his
aerial exploits as a faddist in 1898.
Everybody was going in for motor We
hicles, SO he decided to try something
else. He was just back from two
years residence among the savages
of Patagonia. He had written a sue
cessful book of his adventures, whicn
had been praised by the French Acad-
emy-a distinctive honor. The treas
ures Of his -anthropological
othnographical and geological-had
been stored in the official museum Of
Paris for a wondering world to look
at and classify. One evening he went
to an aerodrome with friend, a mem
Der Of the Aero club, on the Place de
la Concorde.
I'VE will have our coffee up above,
said the friend.
The Counts mind was fresh for new
ideas. A fight Of 500 yards or so
above the earth for an after-dinner
smoke had a charm for him. Thence
forward he was an avowed balloonist.
He never stopped until he had be-
come vice president of the Aero club,
and admittedly the champion aeros-
tat Of the world. He broke all records
with a balloon journey from Paris to
the Province Of Warsaw, in Russia.
He slept in the clouds at a tempera-
ture of IL degrees below zero Reau-
mur (Which is much colder than Fab
renheiD when his comrade had to
hammer the soles Of his feet with a
club to keep him from sleeping too
long and freezing to death. He jour
neyed through the air 1,240 miles in
a little more than thirty-fye hours In
his comparatively brief career as an
aeroRaut he has travelled more than
$4,000 miles through the clouds, has
spent in all forty-one days in the air,
and has made 1873 ascents without an
accident-so he may be quoted as an
authority on ballooning. AS such he
is no advocate Of the flying machine.
The Count crossed the continent of
North America once, while en- route to
the Far East for the French govern
ment, but until he landed last week he
had no opportunity to llnger at the
gateway of the uwestern continent.
He did not bring balloon with him,
and says he is sorry for it. He would
like to convince rich young Ameri-
cans who go in for racing automo-
biles as an expensive sport that there
is far more fun and much less danger
in racing balloons.
The Counts latest literary produc-
tion, in French, is an imaginary
'round-the-world journey in an airship,
something after the Jules Verne or
der Of literature. 1t has pleased him
to regard America as a benighted
coua try in the matter Of aerial travel.
In fiction the Count does not hesitate
to deal with transatlantic journeys in
a dirigible balloon. In fact, he shakes