Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the famous cavalry general of Würtemburg, and hero of the Franco-Prussian war, after retiring from the army, organized, in 1898, a limited liability company for the purpose of developing a new type of dirigible which he had long contemplated. It was to be a vessel far larger and swifter than any the world had yet seen. In the summer of 1900, after two years of industrious experimental research and active construction, he brought forth from his floating laboratory on Lake Constance, near Manzell, the first of those wonderful air ships which have aroused such expectation and enthusiasm in Germany. In outward appearance and in its chief features of design it typified the whole series of motor balloons thus far developed and navigated by that illustrious inventor. Many valuable improvements were added, as a result of trial and the advance of the collateral sciences; but the fundamental plans seem to have proved as practical as they were bold and original. One by one were surmounted the greatest obstacles, physical, financial and finally political; for the Prussian Ministry did not favor his project at first, and many aëronautical adepts were adverse to it. Those huge ships faced the fury of many a tempest; their dauntless builder endured the storm of hostile criticism; but in the end, builder and ships alike won the plaudits of a proud empire and of an astonished world. Outwardly a Zeppelin balloon may be described as a long cylinder with ogival ends and a V-shaped keel running the length of its bottom. From afar the cylinder and pointed ends appear circular in cross section, but they are sixteen-sided. About one-third the distance from either end of the great ship a small boat is suspended from the hull so closely that at those places the keel is omitted to make room. These two boats are rigidly connected with the hull and support it when the vessel rests on, or is towed along the water. Within them are the crew and petroleum engines, while above them and outward on each side of the hull, and fastened to it by outriggers, are two pairs of screw propellers, so placed as to exert their united thrust along the line of resistance. In some cases the crew can walk through the V-shaped keel from one boat to another, the passageway being illuminated here and there, by transparent covering, or windows of celluloid, along the sides and floor. Again an observer may climb up through the hull and take observations of the sky from above. Telephones, electric bells, and speaking tubes serve to transmit intelligence from one part of the vessel to another.