My Airships. By A. Santos-Dumont. (Grant Richards. 6s. net.)—M. Dumont
affords another interesting illustration of the proverb that "the child is father to the man." His early days were spent on a Brazilian coffee-plantation, a place where the machinery employed is highly elaborated. He came to Paris, and finding that professional aeronauts wanted very high terms for an ascent, took to automobilisrn. His first balloon ascent was with M. La Chambre, who charged him the modest sum of .210. By degrees the " steerable balloon idea" developed itself, before long taking the form of the curious cigar-shaped flying machine with which M. Dumont's name is associated. We cannot follow our author into his descriptions and reasonings ; they cannot be set forth without more command of space than we have, and even then scarcely without illustration by drawings. M. Dumont complains that in England he finds curiosity but not support. Paris is more congenial, and Paris will have the first benefit of his success, of the arrival of which he is confident.
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