THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
Àpropos of "horseless carriages," as automobiles were at first called, being defined by their negative qualities, people said: "Our nephews will perhaps see them, but not we." The reality has transcended the dream, and the practical automobile has come before the nephews have had time to fill their uncles' places.
Again I am astonished to see that, in the field of aeronautics, the ideas of dreamers, as opposed to those of scientific men, turn exclusively to what they call aëroplanes—that is to say, toward flying-machines, which as yet exist only in the future, and which raise themselves, or to speak more accurately, will raise themselves, without the assistance of any gas lighter than air. They do not perceive that from now on, the air-ship furnishes a solution of the problem of aërial navigation, and realizes without difficulty the first condition of every system of aërial motion—which is to float in the air, carrying with it its aëronaut; although flying-machines without a balloon have been, until now, only toys, not capable of carrying a man or even of supporting their own weight in the air more than a few minutes.
Certainly the time will come when, thanks to the development of light motors, man will be able to travel like the birds, borne without gas by vast aëroplanes. But the best means of arriving at this result is by the construction of many air-ships and by frequent tests, made not under cover but in the open air.
People err in continually opposing, as they do without reflection, "aërostation," whose principle requires a combination of materials which is lighter than the air displaced by it, to "aviation," which involves a combination heavier than the air.
As a matter of fact in the air-ship—such, for instance, as my "No. 6" — both principles are employed. The balloon, in the form of a spindle, measuring thirty-three metres in length and six metres in diameter in the middle, is heavier than the air, since it does not rise of itself when the propeller is stopped. My air-ship is nothing else than a sort of tubular aëroplane, into whose construction enters hydrogen gas under pressure, which keeps tense its vast surface, with the least possible weight of materials. I use hydrogen as a constituent part of the tubular aëroplane to insure the rigidity of its fabric, in place of a solid frame-work which would not produce for the moment the same effect without the greatest difficulty. For the same reason, for certain pieces of mechanism which do not demand the re-
