But while Count Zeppelin was experimenting with his ponderous leviathan air-ship, a kindred spirit, the young Brazilian, M. Santos-Dumont, was making experiments along similar lines, but with balloons that were mere cockle-shells as compared with the German monster. The young inventor had come to Paris from his home in South America backed by an immense fortune, and by a fund of enthusiasm, courage, and determination unsurpassed by any aerial experimenter in any age. He began at once experimenting with balloons of different shapes, with screws and paddles, and, perhaps most important of all, with the new, light petroleum-motors just then being introduced for use on automobiles, electricity not having proved a success in aerial experiments. His first balloon, _No. 1_, built in 1898, was devoid of any particularly novel features. His _No. 2_ showed some advancement, and his _No. 3_, while a decided improvement, still came far short of answering the requirements of a dirigible balloon. But the young experimenter was learning and profiting by his failures--and, incidentally, was having hairbreadth escapes from death, meeting with many accidents, and being severely injured on occasion. About this time a prize of one hundred thousand francs was offered by M. Deutsch to the aeronaut who should ascend from a specified place in a park in Paris, make the circuit of the Eiffel Tower, and return to the starting-point within half an hour. With the honor of capturing this prize as an additional incentive, Santos-Dumont began the construction of his fourth balloon, the _Santos-Dumont No. 4_. In this balloon everything but bare essentials was sacrificed to lightness, even the car being done away with, the aeronaut controlling the machinery and directing the movements of the balloon from a bamboo saddle. But an accident soon destroyed this balloon, and a fifth was hastily constructed. With this the enthusiastic aeronaut showed that he was almost within grasping distance of the prize in a series of sensational flights between the first part of July and the first week in August. The tower was actually rounded, but on the return trip the balloon collided with a high building in the Rue Alboni and was wrecked, the escape of the aeronaut without a scratch being little short of miraculous.