Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/322

306 were taken, the balloon returning each time to its point of departure, and attaining a speed of nearly fifteen miles an hour, independently of the wind, which was blowing at the rate of five miles an hour.

In their communication to the French Academy of Sciences, on the 18th of August, Renard and Krebs accord to Tissandier the credit of



priority in successfully applying electricity to the propulsion of balloons. Tissandier, on the other hand, equally freely accords to them the credit of making a pronounced success of what had been developed to only a limited extent in his hands on account of the want of funds. To each of the group the world must now give praise for the solution of a problem which was theoretically solved long ago, but involved practical difficulties that seemed almost if not quite insurmountable.