Before the war the passenger-carrying Zeppelins _Schwaben_ and _Victoria Louise_ were equipped with cabins for the accommodation of twenty-four passengers and crew. Meals were served à la carte; two rows of easy-chairs were arranged before the windows, with a passageway between; and there was a wash-room with water-faucets; which will give an idea of the completeness of the appointments for the comfort of passengers. In the super-Zeppelins constructed since then, and now being fitted to fly the Atlantic, there is ample room for a promenade of four to five hundred feet in the keel. Moreover, there is even a greater opportunity for the giant sky-liners to provide luxurious cabins and other comforts for the travellers, such as of course cannot possibly be supplied on a heavier-than-air machine, where even the chief engineer cannot so much as leave his seat to examine the engine once the machine is in flight! The ability of the airship to cruise at low heights is another comfort the dirigible enjoys over the aeroplane, which, to insure a safe landing in event of engine trouble, usually navigates across country at five thousand feet altitude or more. The most pleasurable height for air cruising is between five hundred and one thousand feet, for from there the perspective of the countryside is not too diminutive. As regards the safety of travel in lighter-than-air machines, naturally there have been several disasters such as are inevitable in perfecting a new science. The disasters that occur in the air are closely analogous to those of the sea. The greatest dangers to the airship are the wind, storms, and fire. Of these the last is the most dangerous, because hydrogen gas is so highly explosive. That was what caused the destruction of the _Akron_, with Vaniman and his companions. What caused the explosion that annihilated the crew of twenty-five of the L-11 in September, 1913, is not known. Perhaps the absorption of the rays of the sun caused the gas to expand, bursting the gas-bags. Glossed surfaces now deflect the rays and help to avoid that danger. The extraordinary point in the long experimentation with Zeppelins was the immunity of the actual crews of the airships from death, until the thirteenth year of the Zeppelin’s existence. Despite the ever-recurring accidents and the frequent loss of life and serious injury among landing parties and the workshop hands, not a single fatality occurred to any of the navigators until September, 1913, when naval Zeppelin L-1, which was actually the fourteenth Zeppelin to be constructed, was wrecked in the North Sea by a squall, her crew of thirteen being drowned.