blunt bow and a pointed stern. Her capacity was
approximately 700,000 cubic feet. The framework was made of a new alloy
called 'duralumin', nearly as strong in tension as mild steel and not
much heavier than aluminium. It was covered with 46,000 square yards of
water-tight silk fabric, so treated with aluminium dust and rubber that
the upper surface of the hull, which had to resist the rays of the sun,
showed the silver sheen of a fish, while the lower surface, which had to
resist the damp vapours of the water, was of a dull yellowish colour.
The hydrogen was contained in seventeen gas-bags of rubbered fabric. The
ship was fitted with two Wolseley motors of one hundred and eighty
horse-power each, and with a whole series of vertical and horizontal
rudders. She was popularly called the _Mayfly_--a name which, both in
and out of Parliament, suggested to bright wits an ill-omened pun.

She never flew. For four days she remained tethered to the mooring-mast
in the centre of the Cavendish Dock, and successfully completed her
mooring trials. During this time the wind was rough, reaching in gusts a
velocity of forty-five miles an hour. This wind, being a severer test
than any previous airship had successfully encountered when moored in
the open, proved the strength of the ship. But her very strength, and
the completeness of her fittings, told against her in another way; the
lift of an airship, consisting as it does of a small excess of buoyancy
over weight, is always a matter of the most delicate and difficult
calculation, and her lift proved to be insufficient. She was taken back
into her shed, without mishap, and alterations were at once put in hand.
On the 24th of September 1911 she was again drawn out of her shed to be
transferred to the mooring-post; in the process she broke her back, and
became a total wreck. The ensuing court of inquiry pronounced that the
accident was due to structural weakness; the naval officers and men
were exonerated from all blame.

This accident had a far-reaching effect. It disappointed public hopes
and strengthened the case of objectors. There are always critics who
take a certain mild pleasure in failure, not because they prefer it to
success, but because they have predicted it. The pioneers of aeronautics
could not afford to lose friends; they had none too many. The men in
high authority at the Admiralty were not convinced that airships were a
desirable and practicable addition to naval reso