PART III OTHER CRAFT AND THE FUTURE CHAPTER XXIII THE EVOLUTION OF THE AIRSHIP The airship is the aristocrat of the air. In jealousy and scorn the aeroplane may refer to her as “gasbag,” “sausage”; may poke fun at her by reason of her unwieldy size, and laugh at her lack of speed; she still looks down on that craft with as much haughty disdain as a duchess of royal blood would bestow on a _nouveau riche_. Has she not a pedigree as long as may be forgotten? She may trace her genealogy back to the Greek mythology and may number among her progenitors such men as Leonardo da Vinci, Cyrano de Bergerac, Francisco de Lana, Joseph Montgolfier, Blanchard, Santos Dumont and Count Zeppelin. The aeroplane is but an invention of the Twentieth Century! Italy was the birthplace of the lighter-than-air craft; throughout the interesting history of the airship the names of famous Italian scientists predominate, and particularly those of the monastic order. Perhaps it was that convent life was inducive to study; untrammeled by the cares of the outside world, men turned their attention to the sciences and developed their imaginations. Be that as it may, we find that to-day the Italian airships are the finest in the world. But although Italy may have done more than the other nations, history tells us that it was two Frenchmen, Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, who were the first to bring the lighter-than-air craft prominently before the world. The story goes that while rowing, Stephen’s silk coat fell overboard into the water. It was placed over a hot oven to dry, and watching it, Joseph noticed that the hot air tended to make it rise. The upshot of the affair was the Montgolfier balloon. Throughout history the lighter-than-air craft has figured prominently in warfare. In the Franco-Prussian War, during the siege of Paris alone, as many as 66 balloons left the stricken city, carrying 60 pilots, 102 passengers, 409 carrier pigeons, 9 tons of letters and telegrams, and 6 dogs. Gaston Tissandier went over the German lines and dropped 10,000 copies of a proclamation addressed to the soldiers, asking for peace, yet declaring that France would fight to the bitter end. In the American Civil War an aeronaut named La Fontaine went up in a balloon over an enemy camp, made his observation, rose higher into the air, and succeeded in getting into a cross-current, which carried him back to his place of departure. The first cross-channel flight was made by balloon in 1785, by Blanchard, who had with him an American doctor named Jefferies, together with a large supply of provisions, ballast and oars. This weighed the balloon down to such an extent that she almost sank into the sea a few moments after starting. Ballast was thrown overboard, and she rose, only to sink again. More ballast was dropped. Then they rose into the air and eventually landed in safety on the hills behind Calais. * * * * *