It may not be generally known that as far back as 1870 Germany attempted to make regular use of military balloons, and that two balloons and equipment were purchased from an English aeronaut. Several ascents were successfully made with a member of the general staff as passengers. Before Paris, however, it proved impossible to obtain the gas for inflation, and the whole balloon detachment was dissolved. Fourteen years later, in 1884, regular experiments regarding the taking of observations and the exchanging of signals were begun. Fifty thousand marks a year were set aside for the purpose, and so satisfactory were the results that in 1887 a regular balloon corps was organized with a major, a captain, three lieutenants and fifty non-commissioned officers and men. The discovery that the gas could be transported in steel cases in a greatly condensed form placed military ballooning on a much securer basis and the corps, greatly increased, has taken part in the yearly maneuvers since 1893. The captive balloon is still used as a sort of training-ship for recruits, but the free balloon has been practically superseded. The first Zeppelin and the first Parseval air-ships were acquired in 1907 and, in spite of frequent accidents, have become as much a part of the armed forces as have batteries or battle-ships. There are now no less than five air-ship battalions under the “general board of inspection of military, air and power transport matters.” The combined appropriations of Prussia, Bavaria and Württemberg for their air fleets in 1913 amounted to 70,000,000 marks. The recent ships, which are not necessarily confined to the Zeppelin type, though built along the same lines, are almost as large as ocean steamships. Last year the “L II” carried twenty-eight passengers on its trial trip. It exploded in mid-air and twenty-seven were killed, among them almost all of Germany’s chief military aeronautic experts. “L III,” which is nearly completed, will have a displacement of 32,000 cubic meters. The largest and newest ship at present, the Schütte-Lanz II, has a displacement of between 23,000 and 24,000 cubic meters, is run by four Maybach motors, each of one hundred seventy horse-power, and beats the previous Zeppelin record for speed (seventy-nine kilometers or forty-nine and three-eighths miles an hour) by six kilometers. No other country has any air-ship that can in any way compare with this. Under construction is the twenty-fifth Zeppelin, which will have a length of some four hundred fifty feet. All modern air-ships are equipped with wireless telegraphy having a range of about four hundred kilometers, and can carry light Gatling guns. They can lift a weight of some 16,000 pounds and their cost is from 700,000 marks upward. The Germans have practised very industriously with their air-ships—only the other day a pilot completed his seven hundredth trip. [Illustration: Military Airship in Process of Construction]