Some time before the attempted ascent was made the airship was conveyed from San Francisco across the Bay to Berkeley, in Alameda County, Cal. The trial trip was fixed for Saturday, May 23rd, and on that morning thousands of excited people were on hand to watch the ascent. The airship was released from its moorings and began to mount into the air, its nose having a decided tilt downwards. The machine had risen scarcely two or three hundred feet when the rear of the balloon had an upward inclination of as much as forty-five degrees. Morrell shouted to his crew, consisting of engineers and valve-tenders, numbering fourteen or fifteen, to go aft, so as to depress the stern of the machine and cause it to resume its equilibrium. But the shouts and cheers of the people below drowned his voice so that he could not be heard. A moment later the gas rushed into the after-end of the bag with great force, bursting the oiled cloth of which the envelope was constructed, and the cheers had hardly died away before the horror-stricken crowd saw the great balloon collapse and come headlong to the ground, with its nineteen passengers, who included Morrell, eight engineers, five valve-tenders, two photographers with their assistants, and the aeronaut already mentioned. [Illustration: “THE HORROR-STRICKEN CROWD SAW THE GREAT BALLOON COLLAPSE AND COME HEADLONG TO THE GROUND WITH ITS NINETEEN PASSENGERS.” NOTICE THE VALVE-TENDER SCRAMBLING WILDLY ALONG THE NETTING ON TOP OF THE GAS-BAG; HIS AGILITY STOOD HIM IN GOOD STEAD, FOR HE ESCAPED ALMOST UNINJURED. _From a Photograph._] The unfortunate men were entangled in the wreckage of flapping cloth, network, and machinery, running the danger of being struck by the propellers of the engines or of being suffocated by the great volumes of escaping gas. One valve-tender, who was on the top of the great bag, can be seen in one of the photographs climbing along the netting. His agility stood him in good stead, for he escaped from the wreck almost uninjured. [Illustration: GATHERING UP THE WRECKAGE AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF THE AIRSHIP. _From a Photograph._] It might be supposed that nearly all the men on the ill-fated craft were killed; but, remarkable to relate, not one lost his life. Morrell himself sustained severe lacerations, and had both his legs broken by one of the propellers; Penfold, the persistent, had his right ankle and left instep broken; Rogers, an assistant engineer, suffered a broken right ankle; and another engineer met with broken ribs and ankles. Others were bruised or rendered unconscious by the gas.