In keeping with the lively growth of these great ships was the formation of the German aërial transportation company, with a capital stock of $750,000, reported in _l’Aérophile_ for December, 1909. A line of large _Zeppelins_ was to connect Baden-Baden, Mannheim, Munich, Leipsic, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Dresden, Essen and Frankfort. The first two auto balloons of this line were to be the _Zeppelin IV_ and _Zeppelin V_, to be put in commission in the spring of 1910. The _Zeppelin IV_ was to cube 706,000 cubic feet, and carry twenty passengers in three cars, each containing a motor. The _Zeppelin V_ was to be constructed of a remarkably light rigid alloy “electrometal,” and was to carry at least thirty passengers. This enterprise certainly formed an appropriate termination to the first decade of practical auto ballooning. The projected passenger line of the German Air Ship Society was inaugurated the following summer with serene audacity and fairy-like magnificence. The first ship employed, _Zeppelin VII_, was a huge vessel of unusual power, speed and elegance of appointment. She was 485 feet long by 46 in diameter, cubed 690,000 feet, and carried three engines totaling 420 horse power and competent to drive her 35 miles per hour. Midway beneath her hull and rigidly joined to it, was a passenger car thirty-five feet long, having a vestibule at one end, a lavatory at the other, and five compartments between them, with seats for twenty persons. Beyond the ends of the car were open decks leading to the boats fore and aft containing the machinery. At three o’clock on the morning of June 22, 1910, with Count Zeppelin in charge, and a dozen passengers aboard, this majestic auto balloon sailed from Friedrichshafen up the Rhine Valley for Düsseldorf, three hundred miles, and after a prosperous voyage of nine hours, made an easy landing. Next morning at eight thirty she voyaged from Düsseldorf to Dortmund, thirty-seven miles north, sailing at a general height of one thousand feet, over some of the finest industrial parts of Germany. Then she returned to Düsseldorf with her delighted passengers who were all enthusiasm for the new mode of travel so auspiciously begun. Of the thirty-two persons aboard, the majority were regular public passengers who had paid fifty dollars each for the trip, several of them tourists from various countries, and ten of them women.