sses, experience
having established their efficiency for the specified military services
for which they are built. In point of speed they compare favourably with
the latest types of Zeppelin, the speeds of the larger types ranging
from 32 to 48 miles per hour with a motor effort of 360 to 400
horse-power.

So far as the French airships of war are concerned, the fleet is
somewhat heterogeneous, although the non-rigid type prevails. The French
aerial navy is represented by the Bayard-Clement, Astra, Zodiac, and the
Government-built machines. Although the rigid type never has met with
favour in France, there is yet a solitary example of this system of
construction--the Spiess, which is 460 feet in length by 47 feet in
diameter and has a displacement of 20 tons. The semi-rigid craft are
represented by the Lebaudy type, the largest of which measures 293 feet
in length by 51 feet in diameter, and has a displacement of 10 tons.

One may feel disposed to wonder why the French should be apparently
backward in this form of aerial craft, but this may be explained by the
fact that the era of experiment had not been concluded at the time war
was declared, with the result that it has been somewhat difficult to
determine which type would meet the military requirements of the country
to the best advantage. Moreover, the French military authorities evinced
a certain disposition to relegate the dirigible to a minor position,
convinced that it had been superseded by the heavier-than-air machine.
Taken on the whole, the French airship fleet is inferior to the German
in point of speed, if not numerically, but this deficiency is more than
counterbalanced by the skill and ability of the men manning their craft,
who certainly are superior to their contemporaries in Germany, combined
with the proved character of such craft as are in service.

The same criticism may be said to apply to Great Britain. That
country was backward in matters pertaining to the airship, because its
experiments were carried out spasmodically while dependence was reposed
somewhat too much upon foreign effort. The British airships are small
and of low speed comparatively speaking. Here again it was the advance
of the aeroplane which was responsible for the manifestation of a
somewhat indifferent if not lethargic feeling towards the airship.
Undoubtedly the experiments carried out in Great Britain were somewhat
disappointing. The one and only attempt to out-Zeppelin the