Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/626

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 the relative advantages of all known systems for propulsion and guidance, and to attain practical experience in manipulating air craft. The operator and machinery are suspended below a peculiarly shaped gas-spindle, whose fabric has been treated by a special process, original with me, which enables it to retain hydrogen permanently during use. It has within a limited period made upwards of one hundred flights, embracing New York State, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine,





 Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.

"Three machines only have been built, varying somewhat in form of spindle and extent of surface handled. As used at present, the screw, formerly fifteen feet diameter, has been reduced to eight feet, and the wings and rudder abandoned, the universal-jointed aeroplanes on each side haying proved in every way superior for all evolutions.