A fresh and promising experiment has been made in aerial
travelling. Count Zeppelin, a Bavarian, with the assistance, it is believed, of his own Government and the German Emperor, has built, at an expense of more than £50,000, an aluminium car 450 ft. long, with benzine motors and guiding apparatus, the whole weighing nine tons. The structure, which is lifted by thirty balloons, was tried on July 2nd at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance, and with five passengers on board travelled to Immenstadt, thirty-five miles, at a speed which occasionally reached twenty miles an hour. The machine ascended easily, descended easily, and proved easy to direct. There is no new principle, as we show elsewhere, involved in the experiment, but it really appears as if the structural difficulties might be overcome by care and outlay. Further details about the action of the air steamer in a high wind are much required, and it is to be noted that while the structure weighs nine tons, its carrying power is only two tons ; but if the balloons cannot master the hull any more than sails master a ship, a long forward step has been made in aerial navigation. Perhaps the realisation of Tennyson's vision will be one of the earliest incidents of the coming century.
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