just estimate of the value of the balloons in this war. Some
commanding officers were prejudiced against them, and the difficulties
and miscarriages which are inevitable in the use of a new instrument did
nothing to remove the prejudice. The steel tubes in which the hydrogen
was compressed were cumbrous and heavy to transport. The artillery were
not trained to make the fullest use of the balloons; the system of
signalling by flags was very imperfect; and the signallers in the air
often failed to attract the attention of those with the guns. For all
that, the balloons proved their value. The Ladysmith balloon did good
service in directing fire during the battle of Lombard's Kop, and, more
generally, in reporting on the Boer positions. Later on in the siege it
was impossible to get gas, and the balloons fell out of use. At
Magersfontein it was by observation from the air that the howitzer
batteries got the range of the enemy's ponies concealed in a gully, and
accounted for more than two hundred of them. On the 26th of February
1900 an officer in a balloon reported on General Cronje's main position
at Paardeberg, and the report was of value in directing the attack on
the position.

These operations put a heavy strain on the factory. Its normal output of
one balloon a month was increased during the war to two balloons a
month, and new buildings at a cost of more than four thousand pounds
were proposed in 1900, and approved by the Aldershot Command. Even
during the South African War there were other calls on the factory. In
the summer of 1900 a balloon section, under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. Macdonald, was embarked for China; in the
following year the factory supplied two balloons and stores for the
Antarctic Expedition of Captain Scott. These demands interfered with
experimental activities, which when the war was ended, and especially
when the new factory was built in 1905, were renewed with great zest. As
early as January 1902 Colonel Templer, having visited Paris to report on
the doings of M. Santos Dumont, recommended that experiments with
dirigible balloons should be carried out at once, but received from the
War Office the reply that the estimates for the year, which, apart from
these experiments, amounted to L12,000, must be cut down to half that
sum. Nevertheless from time to time grants were obtained for the
construction of elongated balloons, for a complete wireless telegraphy
equipment, and, in 190