Zeppelin is such a picture of destruction, such a vast display of twisted metal and rags lying wreathed across a landscape, that those who see it are apt to get an exaggerated idea of the dangers of airship travel. With all his misfortunes, it was Count Zeppelin's luck for many years that no life was lost among those who travelled in his ships. In May 1906, before Count Zeppelin's enterprise had received the stamp of Imperial and national approval, there was formed, under the inspiration of the German Emperor, a society for airship development. The success of the Lebaudy airship in France prompted the construction in Germany of two types of semi-rigid airship--the Parseval and the Gross. Only four of the latter type were built, and all four suffered mishap; the last and best of them, built in 1911, is said to have shown a better performance than the best contemporary Zeppelin. The Parseval was designed in 1906 by Major August von Parseval, of the Third Bavarian Infantry Regiment, who retired from the German army in 1907 in order to devote himself entirely to scientific work. He was already famous for the kite balloon, which he had invented in collaboration with Hauptmann Bartsch von Sigsfeld, who died in 1906. The Parseval kite balloon was adopted or imitated by all other nations during the war. The Parseval airship was as good an airship, of the non-rigid type, as had ever been built; it was supplanted, later on, by the rigid type, because an airship's lift depends on its size, and very large airships could not be built without a rigid framework. The society for airship development bought up Major von Parseval's plans, and began to construct Parseval airships. The statutes of the society forbade it to sell ships for profit, so an allied company was formed, the Luftfahrzeugbau-Gesellschaft, with works at Bitterfeld, and a subsidiary company, the L.V.G., or Luftverkehrs-Gesellschaft, to exploit Parseval airships for passenger-carrying, with its headquarters at Berlin and sheds at Johannisthal. Two passenger-carrying ships were built, the _Stollwerk_ in 1910, and the _Charlotte_ in 1912. The Parseval ships, perhaps because, being non-rigid, they were held to be inferior to the Zeppelins, were freely sold to foreign powers--one to the Austrian army in 1909, one to the Russian and one to the Turkish army in 1910, one to the Japanese army in 1912, another to the Russian and two to the Italian army in 1913; last of all, in the same year, one to the British Admiralty. Some eighteen Parseval airships were built and launched between 1909 and 1913. The third great airship-building company in Germany was the Schuette-Lanz Company, with its factory in Mannheim. It was named from Heinrich Lanz, the founder of machine works near Mannheim, who supplied the money, and Professor Schuette, of the Technical University, Danzig, who supplied the skill. Its rigid airships were made of wood; they were built from 1912 onwards expressly for the uses of the army and