We may pass over hastily some of the later experiments with dirigibles that failed. In 1834 the Count de Lennox built an airship 130 feet long to be driven by oars worked by man power. When the crowd that gathered to watch the ascent found that the machine was too heavy to ascend even without the men, they expressed their lively contempt for the inventor by tearing his clothes to tatters and smashing his luckless airship. In 1852, another Frenchman, Henry Giffard, built a cigar-shaped balloon 150 feet long by 40 feet in diameter, driven by steam. The engine weighed three hundred pounds and generated about 3 H.-P.--about 1/200 as much power as a gas engine of equal weight would produce. Even with this slender power, however, Giffard attained a speed, independent of the wind, of from five to seven miles an hour--enough at least for steerage way. This was really the first practical demonstration of the possibilities of the mechanical propulsion of balloons. Several adaptations of the Giffard idea followed, and in 1883 Renard and Krebs, in a fusiform ship, driven by an electric motor, attained a speed of fifteen miles an hour. By this time inventive genius in all countries--save the United States which lagged in interest in dirigibles--was stimulated. Germany and France became the great protagonists in the struggle for precedence and in the struggle two figures stand out with commanding prominence--the Count von Zeppelin and Santos-Dumont, a young Brazilian resident in Paris who without official countenance consecrated his fortune to, and risked his life in, the service of aviation.
THE SERVICES OF SANTOS-DUMONT
In his book My Airships the distinguished aviator A. Santos-Dumont tells this story of the ambition of his youth and its realization in later days:
I cannot say at what age I made my first kites, but I remember how my comrades used to tease me at our game of "pigeon flies." All the children gather round a table and the leader calls out "Pigeon Flies! Hen flies! Crow flies! Bee flies!" and so on; and at each call we were supposed to raise our fingers. Sometimes, however, he would call out "Dog flies! Fox flies!" or some other like impossibility to catch us. If any one raised a finger then he was made to pay a forfeit. Now my playmates never failed to wink and smile mockingly at me when one of them called "Man flies!" for at the word I would always raise my finger very high, as a sign of absolute conviction, and I refused with energy to pay the forfeit. The more they laughed at me the happier I was, hoping that some day the laugh would be on my side.
Among the thousands of letters which I received after winning the Deutsch prize (a prize offered in 1901 for sailing around the Eiffel Tower) there was one that gave me peculiar pleasure. I quote from it as a matter of curiosity:
"Do you remember, my dear Alberto, when we played together 'Pigeon Flies!'? It came back to me suddenly when the news of your success reached Rio. 'Man flies!' old fellow! You were right to raise your finger, and you have just proved it by flying round the Eiffel Tower.
"They play the old game now more than ever at home; but the name has been changed, and the rules modified since October 19, 1901. They call it now 'Man flies!' and he who does not raise his finger at the word pays the forfeit."
The story of Santos-Dumont affords a curious instance of a boy being obsessed by an idea which as a man he carried to its successful fruition. It offers also evidence of the service that may accrue to society from the devotion of a dilettante to what people may call a "fad," but what is in fact the germ of a great idea needing only an enthusiast with enthusiasm, brains, and money for its development. Because the efforts of Santos-Dumont always smacked of the amateur he has been denied his real place in the history of aeronautics, which is that of a fearless innovator, and a devoted worker in the cause.
Born on one of those great coffee plantations of Brazil, where all is done by machinery that possibly can be, Santos-Dumont early developed a passion for mechanics. In childhood he made toy airplanes. He confesses that his favourite author was Jules Verne, that literary idol of boyhood, who while writing books as wildly imaginative as any dime tale of redskins, or nickel novel of the doings of "Nick Carter" had none the less the spirit of prophecy that led him to forecast the submarine, the automobile, and the navigation of the air. At fifteen Santos-Dumont saw his first balloon and marked the day with red.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
A British Kite Balloon.
( The open sack at the lower end catches the breeze and keeps the balloon steady.)]
