The daily progressive-miner., 1916-07-14
COUNT ZEPPELIN
 IS 80 YEARS OLD
FAMOUS GERMAN WAR BALLOON MAKER MADE FIRST FLIGHT
 IN UNITED STATES.

AMSTERDAM, July S.--Count Ferd- inand von Zeppelin entered upon his Soth year today and the occasion is to be observed with celebrations in all parts of Germany. according to dis patches from Berlin.
 To few of the worlds great inventors has fame come so tardily and reluc- tanly as it has to the man who brought to perfection the dirigible airship, and who is now characterized by his em- peror as the greatest German of the century" Few inventors have en- eountered such relentless obstacles and overcome them by so indomitable a spirit. At the age of 75 years he and his invention were the subject of public ridicule. Today, on the thresh- hold of his eightieth year, he is hon ored by the entire German nation. and his invention is hailed as one of the most effective weapons that Germany has been able to bring to bear on her enemies in the present war.
 It is not generally known that Count von Zeppelin made his first flight in the United States At twenty-five years of age. as lieutenant of cav airy, he was Wurttemburg's military attache and observer with the Union army in the American civil war. Join ing the Army of the Mississippi. he was attached to Gen. Carl Schurz' brig ade. It was then that he had his first taste of aeronautics. He went up in a balloon. sent up by the federal army to spy out the positions of the Con federates. Zeppelin not only volun- teered, but begged to be permitted to go up. His request was granted, and during the remainder of his service with the federal army he made numer- ous balloon ascensions.
 When he returned to Germany at the close of the American conflict he was imbued with a strong taste for .aeronautics. and it is said that even at that early day he already dreamed of navigating the air in a dirigible bal loon. Many years were to elapse, how ever, before he could begin the prac- tical execution of his plans. He dis tinguished himself in the war with Austria in 1866 and in the Franco Prussian war four years later, as an officer of a Prussian cavalry regiment. Many thousands of dollars were us ed and many lives were lost before the Zeppelin became an accomplish ed fact With each successive disas- CT the aged inventor set to work to eliminate the imperfections. Wealthy and influential friends, among them the emperor, shared Zeppelin's faith in the ultimate success of his inyen- tion Airship after airship was con- structed at great cost, only to meet with destruction after a few flights, and some of them on their initial trip. The spectacular nature of Zeppelin s misfortunes loomed large in the pub lie mind, and it was only the German military and scientific experts who continued to have faith in his inyen- tion.
 While the German scientific or gans proclaimed each new Zeppelin a triumph, the weight of expert opinion in England was on the other side. At the beginning of the present war the English were inclined to laugh at the idea of a Zeppelin raid. The possib- ility of such thing was ridiculed by even the foremost of English aviation experts, some of whom still contend ed that "a balloon cannot be steered in the air because of the absence of that denser medium for the rudder which the water provides in the case of ship"