The weekly Corinthian. (Corinth, Miss.) 1894-19??, 1907-10-31
CONVENTION OF
AIR NAvIGAT0RS
REVIEWS ACHIEVEMENTS IN AD-
DRESS BEFORE AERoNAuTIc
CONGRESS.
MAINLY A WAR MACHINE
,,ri,.d states Ahead in Flying Ma
chine Developments, but GOV
eminent is slow-smali
Value Commercially.

New york oct. 29.-The lnterna-
+,onal Aeronautlc Congress held It's IN
,.ioI session in the rooms Of the Aero
Club Of America here at II a. M Mon
dav Particular interest attaches 10
the proceedings because Of the recent
international race and other COMETS
at st. Louis, and these will be the
basis Of discussion of several papers
In the opening address President
willis L. Moore said in part.
asince the last international Aero
nautic Congress, that at Milan in 1906,
two practical solutions of the problem
of aerial navigation have become es-
tabIished Several dirigible balloons
have been produced which are truly
and EFFICIENTLY nayigable, and dy-
manic flying machine has been
evolved which has flown many times,
the maximum being "a miles at
stretch. Moreover, there have been
great advances in meteorology so that
we are now well on the way to the
domain of the air
The plrigibIe Balloon.
eThe dirigible balloon has now at
tanned a measured speed of rs miles
an hour. It's evolution has taken SO
years. Ginard assembled with spin
dle-shaped balloon and steam engine
in 1852 and attained Gil miles an
hour. De LONE obtained 6.26 miles
per hour with man power in 1872.
Tissandier increased this to 7S2 miles
per hour in 1884 with an electric mo-
tor, while the next year Renard and
Krebs attained IA miles an hour with
the same kind of motor. Then came
Count Zeppelin in 1900 who reached
Is miles an hour and then the sensa-
tional fight of Santos Dumont in 1901
around the Elffel Tower at 10 miles
an hour with a gasoline motor, which
he was the first to apply to dirigible
balloon.
Meanwhile the Germans have pro
duced several war dirigible balloons;
that Of Mai. Parseval, that Of Mai.
Gross. which both have been claimed
to exhibit 2S or 30 miles an hour, and
that Of Count Zeppelin whose i'm
mense balloon, rebuilt for the third
time. is said by the newspapers N
have attained 81 miles an hour. The
British government has also been Sc
cretly building a war dirigible balloon
at Aldershot II was first tested Sep
TENDER 10 and October of this year,
and while perhaps not equal in per
formance to the French or German
airships, it constitutes hopeful be-
ginning
Little Done by Our Government,
Elm the United States the govern
ment has done practically nothing to-
ward building dirigible balloons. This
has been left to private initiative, and
as the only returns possible thus far
are from public exhibitions, Mr.. Ste
vens. Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Knaben-
shue have built and flown small and
slow airships. They could have shown
more speed if they had built larger
ships, but this was beyond their
means, for the 'Patrie" is said to have
cost 100000 On the other hand, Mr.,
wellman has built very large and
fast airship in the daring
project to reach the North Pole.
Small Value Commercially.
Commercially very little is to be
5ng machines. Carrying freight is out
OF the question, and even profitable
smuggling is doubtful. For passenger
traffic the number carried will be so
small and the cost so great that no
competition is possible with existing
modes of transit. Moreover. there
will always be danger. but even be-
fore this has been minimized aerial
navigation may serve in sport. This
has already occurred with balloons
and will be more pronounced with
flying machines. The latter will be
useful in explorations of otherwise in
accessible places, such as mountain
tops, swamps, or densely wooded re-
gions, and also in rapid surveys of
desert or insalubrlous stretches, pro-
vided that supplies of petrol can be
sbtained within the radius Of action.
4or the petrol motor alone has made