Page:My Airships.djvu/227

 tion the united experiences of the spherical balloonist and the automobile "chauffeur," makes demands upon the lone captain's coolness, ingenuity, quick reasoning, and a kind of instinct that comes with long habit. Urged on by these considerations, my great object in the autumn of 1901 was to find a favourable place for practice in aerial navigation. My swiftest and best air-ship—"The Santos-Dumont No. 6 "—was in perfect condition. The day after winning the Deutsch prize in it my chief mechanician asked me if he should tighten it up with hydrogen. I told him yes. Then, seeking to let some more hydrogen into it, he discovered something curious. The balloon would not take any more! It had not lost a single cubic unit of hydrogen! The actual winning of the Deutsch prize had cost only a few litres of petroleum! Just as the Paris winter of biting winds, cold rains, and lowering skies was approaching I received an intimation that the Prince of Monaco, himself a man of science celebrated for his personal investigations, would be pleased to build a balloon house directly on the beach of La