s
balloon shed and injured the balloon. Before necessary repairs could
be accomplished Admiral Peary discovered the Pole and the purpose
of the expedition was at an end. Wellman, however, had become deeply
interested in aeronautics and, balked in one ambition, set out to
accomplish another. With the same balloon somewhat remodelled he
tried to cross the Atlantic, setting sail from Atlantic City, N. J.,
October 16, 1911. But the device on which the aeronaut most prided
himself proved his undoing. The equilibrator, relied upon both for
storage room and as a regulator of the altitude of the ship, proved
a fatal attachment. In even moderate weather it bumped over the
waves and racked the structure of the balloon with its savage
tugging until the machinery broke down and the adventurers were at
the mercy of the elements. Luckily for them after they had been
adrift for seventy-two hours, and travelled several hundred miles
they were rescued by the British steamer _Trent_. Not long after
Wellman's chief engineer Vanniman sought to cross the Atlantic in a
similar craft but from some unexplained cause she blew up in mid-air
and all aboard were lost.

Neither Great Britain nor the United States has reason to be proud
of the attitude of its government towards the inventors who were
struggling to subdue the air to the uses of man. Nor has either
reason to boast much of its action in utterly ignoring up to the
very day war broke that aid to military service of which Lord
Kitchener said, "One aviator is worth a corps of cavalry." It will
be noted that to get its first effective dirigible Great Britain had
to rely upon popular subscriptions drummed up by a newspaper. That
was in 1909. To-day, in 1917, the United States has only one
dirigible of a type to be considered effective in the light of
modern standards, though our entrance upon the war has caused the
beginning of a considerable fleet. In aviation no less than in
aerostatics the record of the United States is negligible. Our
country did indeed produce the Wright Brothers, pioneers and true
conquerors of the air with airplanes. But even they were forced to
go to France for support and indeed for respectful attention.

So far as the development of dirigible balloons is concerned there
is no more need to devote space to what was done in England and the
United States than there was for the famous chapter on Snakes in
Iceland.

CHAPTER IV

THE COUNT VON ZEPPELIN

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