To most persons this experiment of the aluminum balloon would seem to have been a dismal failure, but it was not so regarded by the advocates of the dirigible balloon. The flight of the balloon, to be sure, was far from a success; but this was attributed to improper management rather than to any inherent defect in the balloon itself, or in the principle upon which it was constructed. Instead of being discouraged, therefore, the school of balloonists, who had lost some of their prestige of late by the performances of the flying-machines of Maxim and Langley, undertook, through their enthusiastic representative, Count Zeppelin, the construction of the largest, most expensive, and most carefully built dirigible balloon heretofore constructed. This balloon was of proportions warranting the name of "air-ship." The great cigar-shaped body was almost four hundred feet in length, and thirty feet in diameter--the proportions of a fair-sized ocean liner--and like the hull of its ocean prototype, was divided into compartments--seventeen in number, and gas-tight. Its frame-work was of aluminum rods and wires, and the skin of the envelope was made of silk, coated with india-rubber. It was equipped with four aluminum screws, and two aluminum cars were placed below the body at a considerable distance apart. The motive power was supplied by benzine motors, selected because of their lightness. The company for constructing this balloon was capitalized at about two hundred thousand dollars, the cost of the shed alone, which rested on ninety-five pontoons on the surface of the lake of Constance, near the town of Manzell, being fifty thousand dollars. July 2nd, 1910, the count and four assistants in the cars, started on the maiden voyage. The balloon rose and made headway at the rate of eighteen miles an hour, responding readily to the rudder, but soon broke or deranged some of the steering-gear so that it became unmanageable and descended at Immerstaad, a little over three miles from the starting-point. Considering the amount of thought, care, and money that had been expended upon it, its performance could hardly be looked upon as a startling success. By the advocates of the aeroplane principle it was considered an utter failure. [Illustration: THE ZEPPELIN DIRIGIBLE BALLOON. Count Zeppelin's famous balloons are of the semi-rigid type, being cased in thin loops of aluminum. The wing-like projections at the sides add greatly to the stability and dirigibility of the balloon. The problem of housing has been met by erecting a structure over the water. It is planned to have a balloon house that will revolve and thus facilitate the introduction of the balloon whatever the direction of the wind. With the above stationary house this is a difficult manœuvre if the wind chances to blow laterally.]