feet wide, and 50 feet high. It had to be solidly constructed not to risk the fate of the all-wood Aërodrome of Toulon, which was twice all but carried away by tempests. Its risky form—almost that of a balloon itself—seemed to invite sea squalls to lift it. Its sensational features are its doors. Tourists never tire of telling each other that these doors are the greatest ever made, in modern times or in antiquity. They slide above on wheels hanging from an iron construction that extends from the façade on each side, and below on wheels that roll over a rail. Each door is 50 feet high by 17 feet wide; and each weighs 9,680 pounds. Their equilibrium is, nevertheless, so well calculated that, on the day of the inauguration, they were rolled apart by two little boys of eight and ten years respectively, the young Princes Ruspoli, grandsons of the Duc de Dino and his first wife, who was a Miss Curtis of New York.
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Showing the sea-wall and the landing stage
After the first flight of the airship, it was seen that some serious miscalculations had been made with respect to the site of the Aërodrome. In the navigation of the air all is new, and surprises meet the experimenter at every turn. As we stood watching the ’’Santos-Dumont No. 6’’ steered out of its balloon-house, Mr. Robert Cook, so long the ’’Captain Bob Cook’’ who coached Yale crews to victory, said:
’’The airship has not yet its dock. Some kind of starting and landing-stage will have to be devised.’’
This was exactly the state of the matter. The airship, loaded with ballast until it was a trifle heavier than the surrounding atmosphere, had to be towed, or, rather, helped out of the balloon-house and across the street before it could be launched into the air over the sea-wall and drop its water-ballast, start its motor, point its nose slightly upward, and dart off on its aërial voyage. Now the sea-wall just across the Boulevard proved to be a dangerous obstruction. From the sidewalk it was only waist-high, but on the other side the surf rattled over the pebbles eight or ten feet below. The airship had to be lifted over it much more than waist-high, not to risk damage to the great arms of the propeller; and when half over, there was no one to sustain it from the other side. The nose of the air-ship pointed obliquely downward at an alarming angle, while its stern threatened to grind on the wall. Scuffling among the pebbles down below, half a dozen workmen held their arms high toward the descending keel, pushed onward by those behind the sea-wall, and they caught and righted it only in time to prevent the aëronaut being precipitated from his basket.
For this reason the entrance back into the bal-
