corridor connecting the two cars was
wholly outside the frame and envelope of the car. Later the perilous
experiment was tried of putting it within the envelope. This
resulted in one of the most shocking of the many Zeppelin disasters.
In the case of the ship _L-II._, built in 1912, the corridor became
filled with gas that had oozed out of the ballonets. At one end or
the other of the corridor this gas, then mixed with air, came in
contact with fire,--perhaps the exhaust of the engines,--a violent
explosion followed while the ship was some nine hundred feet aloft,
and the mass of twisted and broken metal, with the flaming envelope,
fell to the ground carrying twenty-eight men, including members of
the Admiralty Board, to a horrible death.

But to return to the first Zeppelin. Her trial was set for July 2,
1900, and though the immediate vicinity of the floating hangar was
barred to the public by the military authorities, the shores and
surface of the lake were black with people eager to witness the
test. Boats pulled out of the wide portal the huge cigar-shaped
structure, floating on small rafts, its polished surface of pegamoid
glittering in the sun. As large as a fair-sized ocean steamship, it
looked, on that little lake dotted with pleasure craft, like a
leviathan. Men were busy in the cars, fore and aft. The mooring
ropes were cast off as the vessel gained an offing, and ballast
being thrown out she began to rise slowly. The propellers began to
whir, and the great craft swung around breasting the breeze and
moved slowly up the lake. The crowd cheered. Count von Zeppelin,
tense with excitement, alert for every sign of weakness watched his
monster creation with mingled pride and apprehension. Two points
were set at rest in the first two minutes--the lifting power was
great enough to carry the heaviest load ever imposed upon a balloon
and the motive power was sufficient to propel her against an
ordinary breeze. But she was hardly in mid-air when defects became
apparent. The apparatus for controlling the balancing weight got out
of order. The steering lines became entangled so that the ship was
first obliged to stop, then by reversing the engines to proceed
backwards. This was, however, a favourable evidence of her handiness
under untoward circumstances. After she had been in the air nearly
an hour and had covered four or five miles, a landing was ordered
and she dropped to the surface of the lake with perfect ease. Bef