trivance the car always
remains in a horizontal position, however much the balloon may be
inclined. It is no uncommon occurrence for the balloon to make a
considerable angle with the car beneath.

The propeller is quite a work of art. It has a diameter of about 14
feet, and consists of a frame of hollow steel tubes covered with fabric.
It is so arranged that when out of action its blades fall lengthwise
upon the frame supporting it, but when it is set to work the blades
at once open out. The engine weighs 770 pounds, and has six cylinders,
which develop 100 horse-power at 1200 revolutions a minute.

The vessel may be steered either to the right or the left by means of a
large vertical helm, some 80 square feet in area, which is hinged at the
rear end to a fixed vertical plane of 200 square feet area.

An upward or downward inclination is, as we have seen, effected by
the ballonets, but in cases of emergency these compensators cannot be
deflated or inflated sufficiently rapidly, and a large movable weight is
employed for altering the balance of the vessel.

In this country the authorities have hitherto favoured the non-rigid
air-ship for military and naval use. The Astra-Torres belongs to this
type of vessel, which can be rapidly deflated and transported, and so,
too, the air-ship built by Mr. Willows.

CHAPTER XIII. The Zeppelin and Gotha Raids

In the House of Commons recently Mr. Bonar Law announced that since
the commencement of the war 14,250 lives had been lost as the result of
enemy action by submarines and air-craft. A large percentage of these
figures represents women, children, and defenceless citizens.

One had become almost hardened to the German method of making war on the
civil population--that system of striving to act upon civilian "nerves"
by calculated brutality which is summed up in the word "frightfulness".
But the publication of these figures awoke some of the old horror of
German warfare. The sum total of lives lost brought home to the people
at home the fact that bombardment from air and sea, while it had failed
to shake their MORAL, had taken a large toll of human life.

At first the Zeppelin raids were not taken very seriously in this
country. People rushed out of their houses to see the unwonted spectacle
of an air-ship dealing death and destruction from the clouds. But soon
the novelty began to wear off, and as the raids became more frequent
and the casualty lists grew larger, peopl