THE FUTURE OF AIR-SHIPS.
hopes of crossing the Pole on an air current, and being carried to civilisation in the opposite hemisphere ; therefore I see no reason why such an aerial yacht, built for the purpose, should not reach the Pole and get back safely. An Aretic exploration steamship could carry it to the farthest possible point North ; and there, on the deck of the steamship, it could be inflated and sent off to make the few hundred kilometres remaining between it and the great goal.
I have always been attracted by the idea of reaching the Pole in an air-ship. When one considers the very few hundred kilometres remaining to be conquered, it seems annoyingly unpractical that an aerial machine, capable of racing against a time limit in the teeth of a wind blowing twenty-one kilometres per hour, should be baffled by them. To have recourse to speed would have been my fist idea, actually proposed by me in my book Dans L'Air:
“Some day explorers will guide-rope to the North Pole from their ice-locked steamship after it has reached its fartherst possible point north," I said. "Guide-roping over the ice-pack, they will make the few hundred kilometres to the Pole at the rate of from fifty to sixty kilometres per hour. Even at the rate of forty kilometres per hour, the trip to the Pole and back to the ship might be accomplished between breakfast and supper!”
I would now, nevertheless, prefer to rely on time rather than on speed, and trust the adventure to one of these aerial yachts, built for the special purpose.
Experience that will have to be gained by many cruises in my pleasure yacht would teach us how to build, equip, and handle a stronger and more powerful one adapted to Polar exploration. The size of the balloon would have to be calculated in proportion to the long duration of the cruise, the thickness of the envelope, the quantity of petroleum and stores, the capacity of the steam heating system, and the force of motor and propeller.
I have said that my aerial pleasure yacht will have no great speed. Probably it will not exceed fifteen kilometres per hour. What propeller speed ought to be given to the Polar yacht would be a question for calculation with many elements ; but I concede in advance that it might be carried away from its course.
It might be carried from its course ; but having, let us say, from thirty to forty days in the air at its disposal, it could always start due north again with its propeller the moment it had found a region of comparative calm. Note, it would have no need to retrace its course after such a blowing aside—it would simply try to start due north again!
When it found a northerly air-current—either by accident
