trolling the coast and the
English Channel.

The earliest experiments undertaken by the Admiralty with craft lighter
than air had been ambitious and unfortunate. It was always recognized by
those who gave thought to aeronautics that for naval purposes the
airship has some advantages over the aeroplane. It can remain longer in
the air, so that its range of action is greater; it can easily carry
wireless apparatus both for transmitting and for receiving; it can take
up a stationary point of vantage where the aeroplane must needs keep
moving; it can lift a greater weight; and (not least important) it can
enormously add to the efficiency of the observer by supplying him with
comfortable and habitable quarters. These things did not escape the
attention of the small and enthusiastic band of naval officers who from
the first were believers in the air. Their ideas took shape in proposals
which were submitted by the Director of Naval Ordnance (Captain Bacon)
to the First Sea Lord (Lord Fisher) on the 21st of July 1908. What was
proposed, in effect, was that Messrs. Vickers, Son & Maxim, who had been
so successful in the design and manufacture of submarines, should be
asked to undertake the construction of a large rigid airship of the
Zeppelin type. After many meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence,
at which Captain Bacon propounded his views with great vigour, the
committee recommended that the sum of L35,000 should be placed in the
Navy Estimates for 1909-10, for the construction of an airship to be
designed and built under Admiralty supervision. The Treasury agreed, and
Messrs. Vickers's tender for the airship was accepted on the 7th of May
1909. The huge Cavendish Dock at Barrow-in-Furness was appropriated to
the work, and the greatest possible secrecy was observed in all the
preparations. A special section was formed to assist in the construction
of the ship--Captain Murray F. Sueter, R.N., and, with him, Lieutenant
Neville Usborne, Lieutenant C. P. Talbot, and Chief Artificer Engineer
A. Sharpe. For two years public curiosity was kept alive on a diet of
conjecture. A good part of this time was taken up in improvements and
modifications of the design of the ship. When at last in May 1911 the
shed was opened and the huge airship was brought out to her mooring-mast
in the dock, those who had expected a larger and better Zeppelin seemed
justified in their belief. The ship was 512 feet long and 48 feet in
diameter, with a