Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . 58 AIRSHIPS PAST AND PRESENT. main body of the balloon, a slight report was heard, and thewhole thing fell to the ground, where it was entirely destroyedby the names before it was possible to rescue Wolfert and hiscompanion. The disaster was caused by the fact that no suitableprecautions were taken in connection with the benzine vapour,which formed an explosive mixture with the air, and wasaccidentally fired. One would have thought an accident of this. F
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . 58 AIRSHIPS PAST AND PRESENT. main body of the balloon, a slight report was heard, and thewhole thing fell to the ground, where it was entirely destroyedby the names before it was possible to rescue Wolfert and hiscompanion. The disaster was caused by the fact that no suitableprecautions were taken in connection with the benzine vapour,which formed an explosive mixture with the air, and wasaccidentally fired. One would have thought an accident of this. Fig. 30.—Dr. Wolferts dirigible balloon about to start. kind was sufficient to put inventors on their guard, and it istherefore strange to find that Severos death was caused a fewyears later by precisely the same defect in his arrangements. An Austrian engineer, named Schwarz, made a balloon with arigid envelope, but the ascent on the Tempelhofer Feld in 1897was unsuccessful. Marey Monge and Dupuis Delcourt hadalready proposed in 1831 and 1844 to construct the body of metaland this was actually done. But their efforts failed in conse-quence of the insufficient rigidity of their design and the leaks DIRIGIBLE BALLOONS FROM 1883 TO 1897. 59 which occurred at the joints. Schwarzs balloon was constructedof aluminium, 0*008 in. thick, which was* supported on a stifflattice-work, made of tubes of the same metal. The shape waspeculiar, but it was probably owing to difficulties of constructionthat it was impossible to use the form, which had been alreadyfound, as the result of many experime
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