This paper caused a great amount of interest to be taken in aeronautics, with the result that various Frenchmen turned their attention to airship design and production. To France must be due the acknowledgment that she was the pioneer in airship construction and to her belongs the chief credit for early experiments. At a later date Germany entered the lists and tackled the problems presented with that thoroughness so characteristic of the nation. It is just twenty-one years ago since Count Zeppelin, regardless of public ridicule, commenced building his rigid airships, and in that time such enormous strides were made that Germany, at the outbreak of the war, was ahead of any other country in building the large airship. In 1908 Italy joined the pioneers, and as regards the semi-rigid is in that type still pre-eminent. Great Britain, it is rather sad to say, adopted the policy of "wait and see," and, with the exception of a few small ships described in the two succeeding chapters, had produced nothing worthy of mention before the outbreak of the great European war. She then bestirred herself, and we shall see later that she has produced the largest fleet of airships built by any country and, while pre-eminent with the non-rigid, is seriously challenging Germany for the right to say that she has now built the finest rigid airship. FRANCE To revert to early history, in the same year in which Brisson read his paper before the Academy, the Duke of Chartres gave the order for an airship to the brothers Robert, who were mechanics in Paris. This ship was shaped like a fish, on the supposition that an airship would swim through the air like a fish through water. The gas-chamber was provided with a double envelope, in order that it might travel for a long distance without loss of gas. The airship was built in St. Cloud Park; in length it was 52 feet with a diameter of 82 feet, and was ellipsoidal in shape with a capacity of 30,000 cubic feet. Oars were provided to propel it through the air, experiments having proved that with two oars of six feet diameter a back pressure of 90 lb. was obtained and with four oars 140 lb. On July 6th in the same year the first ascent was made from St. Cloud. The passengers were the Duke of Chartres, the two brothers Robert and Colin-Hulin. No valves having been fitted, there was no outlet for the expansion of gas and the envelope was on the point of bursting, when the Duke of Chartres, with great presence of mind, seized a pole and forced an opening through both the envelopes. The ship descended in the Park of Meudon.