The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1907-06-08
How wcllman's Air Ship Will Look.

How Wcllman's Air Ship Will Look.
McClure's Magazine for May con-
tains a sketch, with pleasing illus
which is now on it's way to Danes
Island, from which point Mr.. Well
man proposes to embark for the
north pole. The first portion Of the
article is descriptive of the appear
ance of this huge bag of gas floating
through the air, and we present the
sketch to those who might be inter
ested, in Mr. Wellman's own words:
Some day in July or August, 1907,
as we hope and believe, "a man stand
ing at the northwestern point of
Spitzbergen, six hundred miles al
most directly north of the North
Cape of Norway, will behold a
strange and wonderful spectacle. He
will see, rising from a little pocket
of land amidst the snow-capped hills
of Danes Island, an enormous air.
ship-a huge mass Of hydrogen gas
imprisoned in a staunch reservoir of
cloth and rubber. in shape much like
a thick cigar, its sharp nose pointed
northward. Underneath the mann
moth cigar a curious, spider-webbish
smooth silken walls and roof. From
the two sides of this steel car pro-
trude two steel screws, like the pro-
pellers of 4 steamship, themselves of
| great size, but dwarfed to the eye
| by contrast with the dimensions Of
the gas reservoir overhead. The
screws revolve in the air with
rapid motion, driven by G0-70
horsepower motor, working i'll the
enclosed engine room and therefore
hidden from the onlooker, but the
gathering exhaust will be heard pull
Ing the echoes from the hillside and
frightening the rotches and litti
wakes from their nests in the rocky
cliffs. At the bottom of the car, ANA
forming the very backbone OF it, is
! a long, slender tank of steel-thc
| bunkerS OF this cruiser OF tho air
containing nearly three and one-half
tons Of gasoline. Aft is large rud-
der for steering the craft to the right
| or the left; and here also arc NOV
able planes for enabling its navi-
gators to point it's nose upward or
| downward at their will
Upon the deck and in the engine
room crew of four men, each at
| his appointed post. Instruments of
navigation and meterology abound,
and the captain of the ship stands
with his eyes upon Paragraphs, stat
| ascopes, manometers, and other in
struments which speak to him of the
| ever-varying moods and conditions
of the parts and vitals of his COM
pleX machine. Slowed in kennel
like compartments are dozen
sledge dogs, brought all the way
from the habitat of the Samoyed
| tribes on the Arctic shores of the
River Oh in Siberia. A ton and
half of food is in the cargo that
| neither man nor beast need starve
for many long month, should the
voyage go badly. Sledges, boats,
skees, are there and all the para
phernalia Of a sledging party, should
| it be necessary to make the return
over the ice instead of through the
air. An odd looking contrivance,
snake like, beribbed, articulated,
steel-clad with scales of artifice,
hangs perpendicularly from the for
ward end OF the car; from the aft
part runs far to the rear and down
ward, three or four hundred feet to
the surface of the earth, a steel
cable, dragging after it another and
| longer steel-scaled serpent, half a
ton Of food in his belly, swimming
upon the water or gliding over the
surface of the ice in the wake of
the big ship overhead
| More echoes of the gatling-like
explosions of the motor-exhaust; the
steel screws beat the air with in
creasing velocity; the open strait is
crossed, the crew making their last
salutes to comrades left standing on
the shore; guns are fired from
number of ships lying at anchor in
the little harbor; the traiN of the
serpent is now over the graves of
the Dutchmen on low Smeerenberg
point-and beyond lies the polar
sea, with its eternal fields of ice, it's
vast unexplored area, it's mysteries
jealously guarded through the cen
turtles, its challenge to man to con-
quer them If he dare and can, with
the Pole as the symbol of it's de-
fiance.