CHAPTER XI
THE EXPOSITION SUMMER
THE Exposition of 1900, with its learned congresses, was now approaching. Its International Congress of Aeronautics being set for the month of September I resolved that the new air-ship should be ready to be shown to it.
This was my "No. 4," finished 1st August 1900, and by far the most familiar to the world at large of all my air-ships. This is due to the fact that when I won the Deutsch prize, nearly eighteen months later and in quite a different construction, the newspapers of the world came out with old cuts of this "No. 4," which they had kept on file.
It was the air-ship with the bicycle saddle. In it the 10-metre (33-foot) bamboo pole of my "No. 3" came nearer to being a real keel in that it no longer hung above my head, but, amplified by vertical and horizontal cross pieces and a system of tightly-stretched cords, sus-
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