ame clear.

One conspicuous peculiarity of the early aerial fighting arose from the
profound secrecy with which the airships had been prepared. Each power
had had but the dimmest inkling of the schemes of its rivals, and even
experiments with its own devices were limited by the needs of secrecy.
None of the designers of airships and aeroplanes had known clearly what
their inventions might have to fight; many had not imagined they would
have to fight anything whatever in the air; and had planned them only
for the dropping of explosives. Such had been the German idea. The only
weapon for fighting another airship with which the Franconian fleet had
been provided was the machine gun forward. Only after the fight over
New York were the men given short rifles with detonating bullets.
Theoretically, the drachenflieger were to have been the fighting weapon.
They were declared to be aerial torpedo-boats, and the aeronaut was
supposed to swoop close to his antagonist and cast his bombs as he
whirled past. But indeed these contrivances were hopelessly unstable;
not one-third in any engagement succeeded in getting back to the mother
airship. The rest were either smashed up or grounded.

The allied Chino-Japanese fleet made the same distinction as the Germans
between airships and fighting machines heavier than air, but the type in
both cases was entirely different from the occidental models, and--it
is eloquent of the vigour with which these great peoples took up and
bettered the European methods of scientific research in almost every
particular the invention of Asiatic engineers. Chief among these, it
is worth remarking, was Mohini K. Chatterjee, a political exile who had
formerly served in the British-Indian aeronautic park at Lahore.

The German airship was fish-shaped, with a blunted head; the Asiatic
airship was also fish-shaped, but not so much on the lines of a cod or
goby as of a ray or sole. It had a wide, flat underside, unbroken by
windows or any opening except along the middle line. Its cabins occupied
its axis, with a sort of bridge deck above, and the gas-chambers gave
the whole affair the shape of a gipsy's hooped tent, except that it was
much flatter. The German airship was essentially a navigable balloon
very much lighter than air; the Asiatic airship was very little lighter
than air and skimmed through it with much greater velocity if with
considerably less stability. They carried fore and aft guns, the latter
mu