ALBERTO SANTOS-DUMONT
effect than to let out gas very slowly. It must be admitted that the case is not quite the same with dirigibles. The spherical balloon is under no pressure; the dirigible balloon is held tight as a drum-head by the interior pressure. It is therefore possible that a bullet, penetrating it, might cause an explosion. We must wait and see. War-ships on the high seas when struck at the waterline sink with all hands on board; yet this does not prevent the nations from building them.
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The danger from storms is likewise shared with the ship at sea. When I experimented with my earlier, smaller air-ships, I knew there was danger of being blown away or dashed against buildings by a sudden storm. The danger is not so great now that my air-ships are larger and more powerful; and when the great ones of the future find themselves in storms, they will do what ships at sea have always done, either hold head against the wind, or else run with it. But it will never be possible to land in a storm.
One of my greatest dangers passed unperceived at the time either by myself or any one else. It was while they were rescuing me over the Bay of Monaco. The air-ship was only a few feet above the smoke-stack of the steam chaloupe engaged in towing me. Now the smoke-stack was belching hot black smoke and red-hot sparks, any one of which might have set fire to my escaping hydrogen and blown my balloon and me to atoms.
As to the danger of suspending a properly working petroleum motor beneath a balloon filled with hydrogen gas, everything depends upon how it is done. There is no danger from illuminating gas in houses, although danger was predicted at the beginning by the scientific men of England and America. I do not fear fire while in the air so long as my motor works properly. Yet it is true that once in a long while an automobile blows up. When this happens on the highway the consequences are not necessarily serious; but I confess that such an explosion of a petroleum reservoir in the air would be a different thing. This, however, is a different risk from that of setting fire to the balloon’s hydrogen; that is so remote that I do not consider it.
Poor Severo is dead, as is the unfortunate mechanician who accompanied him; and I would not say a word of unkind criticism of a man who has given up his life in aërial experi-
