ur ranked, until 1914, as
one of the fastest dirigibles in the French service.

In the meantime a Spanish engineer, Senor Torres, had been quietly
working out a new idea. He realised the shortcomings of the prevailing
types of airships some eleven years ago, and unostentatiously and
painstakingly set out to eliminate them by the perfection of a new type
of craft. He perfected his idea, which was certainly novel, and then
sought the assistance of the Spanish Government. But his fatherland was
not adapted to the prosecution of the project. He strove to induce the
authorities to permit even a small vessel to be built, but in vain. He
then approached the French Astra Company. His ambition was to build a
vessel as large as the current Zeppelin, merely to emphasise the value
of his improvement upon a sufficiently large scale, and to enable
comparative data concerning the two designs to be obtained. But the
bogey of expense at first proved insuperable. However, the French
company, decided to give the invention a trial, and to this end a small
"vedette" of about 53,000 cubic feet displacement was built.

Although an unpretentious little vessel, it certainly served to
emphasise the importance of the Torres idea. It was pitted against the
"Colonel Renard," the finest ship at that time in the French aerial
service, which had proved the fastest airship in commission, and
which also was a product of the Astra Company. But this fine craft was
completely outclassed by the puny Astra-Torres.

The builders and the inventor were now additionally anxious to
illustrate more emphatically the features of this design and to build
a far larger vessel. The opportunity was offered by the British
Government, which had been following the experiments with the small
Astra-Torres in France. An order was given for a vessel of 282,500
cubic feet displacement; in this instance it was ranged against another
formidable rival--the Parseval. But the latter also failed to hold its
own against the Spanish invention, inasmuch as the Astra-Torres built
for the British authorities exceeded a speed of 50 miles per hour in the
official tests. This vessel is still doing valuable duty, being attached
to the British air-service in France.

The achievements of the British vessel were not lost upon the French
Government, which forthwith placed an order for a huge vessel of 812,200
cubic feet capacity, equipped with motors developing 1,000 horse-power,
which it was