A still more elaborate and colossal air ship was the _Geant_, constructed in 1863, for A. Nadar of Paris. It was made of a double layer of white silk, had a volume of 215,000 cubic feet and a buoyancy of 4½ tons. The car was a wicker cabin 13 feet wide by 7 feet high, with a wicker balcony round the top so that the roof could be used as an observation deck—a delightful place to loll in the starlight, or watch the morning sun “flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye.” The closed car comprised two main rooms with a hallway between them, one containing the captain’s bed and baggage, the other having three superposed berths for passengers. Minor divisions of the car were reserved for provisions, a lavatory, photography and a printing press, the latter to be used for the dissemination of news from the sky, as the navigators floated from state to state. A compensator balloon of 3,500 cubic feet, just below the main bag and connected with it, received the escaping gas during expansion with increase of temperature or altitude, and gave it back on contraction. In fact as well as in name, Nadar’s vessel was a giant. Curiously enough, he called it the “last balloon,” for he expected to realize enough money by exhibiting it, to inaugurate successful flying by means of the helicopter, and thus banish ballooning from the world of futile effort to the domain of bygone dreams and chimæras. [Illustration: FIG. 11.—CAR OF NADAR’S BALLOON.] The first ascension, made on Sunday, October 4, 1863, was one of magnificent promise. In the midst of a vast holiday throng on the Champ de Mars, the great globe towered aloft nearly two hundred feet, held to earth by one hundred men and twice as many sand bags. In the car were fifteen notable passengers including one lady, the fair young Princess de la Tour d’Auvergne, in morning toilet and a pretty hat. “Lachez tout!” shouts Captain Nadar, the effervescent photographer of Paris. Away they soar, heading for St. Petersburg, with provisions enough to sail beyond the polar sea.