MY AIRSHIPS
published in the French press. The test will probably consist of an attempt to enter one of the French frontier towns, such as Belfort, or Nancy, on the same day that the air-ship leaves Paris. It will not, of course, be necessary to make the whole journey in the air-ship. A military railway waggon may be assigned to carry it, with its balloon uninflated, with tubes of hydrogen to fill it, and with all the necessary machinery and instruments arranged beside it. At some station a short distance from the town to be entered the waggon may be uncoupled from the train, and a sufficient number of soldiers accompanying the officers will unload the air-ship and its appliances, transport the whole to the nearest open space, and at once begin inflating the balloon. Within two hours from the time of quitting the train the air-ship may be ready for its flight to the interior of the technically-besieged town.
Such may be the outline of the task—a task presented imperiously to French balloonists by the events of 1870-1, and which all the devotion and science of the Tissandier brothers failed to accomplish. To-day the problem may be set with better hope of success. All the essential difficulties may be revived by the marking out of a hostile zone
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