NAVIGATION OF THE AIR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9173, 24 August 1908, Page 5

NAVIGATION OF THE AIR.

CABLE NEWS.

United Press Association—BySElectric Telegraph Copyright.

FRENCH STEERABLE BALI LOON. PARIS, August 21. General Picquart, French Minister for War, travelled in a stecrable balloon, the "Excelsior," from St. Cloud tu Rouen. SYMPATHY WITH COUNT ZEPPELIN. BERLIN, August 21. The fund being raised to aid Count Zeppelin, whose military airship recently m°.t with disaster, has reached £IOO,OOO. Fate has ever been unkind to Count Zeppelin. He has, in his time, made many airships, but just when success seemed certain, something has always gone wrong with them. It appeared that at last his unwearying self-sacri-fice was to have it 3 just reward, for had the recent trial proved successful, as there was, every reason to believe it would, he was, upon its completion, to have rtceived from the German Government a sum of £107,500 for his airship, in addition to the £25,000 he had expended on the iron structure for the reception of the balloon. /The story of the Count's life is one of the most romantic in the whole annals of science. He comes of a very old branch of the German nobility, and as a young man was exceedingly rich. In due course he entered the army, ! and served in the Franco-German war of 1870 with great distinction. But science and mechanics appealed to him more than the art of battle, and the problem of aerial navigation fascinatedJiim particularly. At first he.was laughed at for his pains, for at that lime scientific" research was not looked upon with such favour as it is to day. In spits of almost general ridicule, he toiled on ■ unceasingly, and down to the time of his marriage at the a«e of 31 he had made j but little outward progress with his schemes. Luckily for him, his wife was an ardent believer in his genius, and was probably the only person who gave him a cheering word. As the years went on, the cost of his experiments began to tell seriously on the Count's income, and it soon became necessary to sell a portion of hi-* estate. However, no amount of fa lures seemed to damp the inventor'o enthusiasm, and, as he continued to persevere at his own expense, in a few years he and his wife were practically penniless By this time a certain ..mount of interest had been aroused in Count Zeppelin's ventures, and nvans were soon found to finance him in his work. In 1900 he experimented with an aiiship which seemed to be successful; but /once again he was doomed to disappointment, anii in an outburst of despair he decidn.l to give up the fatal problem. But this was more easily said than done, and it was not very long before he was hard at work again, and bitter as the present disappointment will have been, he will no doubt make still another effort to win the prize that was this time so near. In the course of his vax-ious trials Zeppelin has had a good many serious accidents. More than once he has fallen from a great height, but was fortunate enough on sach occasion to alight among bushes. Britain's great airship, the Nulli Secundus, was, it will be remembered, wrecked in a gale, while La Patrie, the pride [of the French nation, met with a similar fate a few weeks afterwards