Page:My Airships.djvu/140

 On this trip I considered that had the air been calm my speed in relation to the ground would have been as much as 25 kilometres (15 miles) per hour. In other words, I went at that rate through the air, the wind being strong though not violent. Therefore, even had not sentimental reasons led me to land at Bagatelle, I should have hesitated to return with the wind to the Vaugirard balloon house—itself of small size, and difficult of access, and surrounded by all the houses of a busy quarter. Landing in Paris, in general, is dangerous for any kind of balloon, amid chimney-pots that threaten to pierce its belly, and tiles that are always ready to be knocked down on the heads of passers-by. When in the future air-ships become as common as automobiles are at present, spacious public and private landing-stages will have to be built for them in every part of the capital. Already they have been foretold by Mr Wells in his strange book, "When the Sleeper Wakes." Considerations of this order made it desirable for me to have a plant of ray own. I needed a building for the housing of my air-ship between trips. Heretofore I had emptied the balloon of all its gas at the end of each trip, as one is bound to do with spherical balloons. Now I saw very