r tried to operate an elongated
balloon before, and so much of this first experience was absolutely new.
Imagine a great bag of yellow oiled silk, cigar-shaped, fully inflated
with hydrogen gas, but swaying in the morning breeze, and tugging at its
restraining ropes: a vast bubble eighty-two feet long, and twelve feel
in diameter at its greatest girth. Such was the balloon of
Santos-Dumont's first air-ship. Suspended by cords from the great
gas-bag was the basket, to which was attached the motor and six-foot
propeller, hung sixteen feet below the belly of the great air-fish.

Many friends and curiosity seekers had assembled to see the aeronaut
make his first foolhardy attempt, as they called it. Never before had a
spark-spitting motor been hung under a great reservoir of highly
inflammable hydrogen gas, and most of the group thought the daring
inventor would never see another sunset. Santos-Dumont moved around his
suspended air-ship, testing a cord here and a connection there, for he
well knew that his life might depend on such a small thing as a length
of twine or a slender rod. At one side of a small open space on the
outskirts of Paris the long, yellow balloon tugged at its fastenings,
while the navigator made his final round to see that all was well. A
twist of a strap around the driving-wheel set the motor going, and a
moment later Santos-Dumont was standing in his basket, giving the signal
to release the air-ship. It rose heavily, and travelling with the fresh
wind, the propellers whirling swiftly, it crashed into the trees at the
other side of the enclosure. The aeronaut had, against his better
judgment, gone with the wind rather than against it, so the power of the
propeller was added to the force of the breeze, and the trees were
encountered before the ship could rise sufficiently to clear them. The
damage was repaired, and two days later, September 20, 1898, the
Brazilian started again from the same enclosure, but this time against
the wind. The propeller whirled merrily, the explosions of the little
motor snapped sharply as the great yellow bulk and the tiny basket with
its human freight, the captain of the craft, rose slowly in the air.
Santos-Dumont stood quietly in his basket, his hand on the controlling
cords of the great rudder on the end of the balloon; near at hand was a
bag of loose sand, while small bags of ballast were packed around his
feet. Steadily she rose and began to move against the wind with