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Wilbur wright and the Inspirer of the children’s encyclopedia

That was the introduction of the aeroplane into Europe, and Wilbur Wright on one of these historic flights .carried up with him a portrait of the child who inspired the Children’s Encyclopedia.

Four 3 ears after Langley’s model aeroplane came the airship. Although his name came to be hateful to humanity, Count Ferdinand Zeppelin, bom at Man- zell, near Lake Constance, in 1838, must have credit for the change from the helpless balloon to the successful lighter-than-air craft. When he had finished his army career he knew much of balloons, and, living at Stuttgart, where the first motorcars were built, he had a ready driving medium for his ship if he could build it.

He saw he must depart entirely from the pear-shaped gas-bag which had been for a century in use, and that he must have a vessel which would not crumple up when driven against the wind. It must be rigid and steerable. So, after many trials and failures which ultimately brought him almost to beggary, he devised the famous, and infamous Zeppelin. Nothing else counts in the history of steerable airships. They are as much.ahead of all rivals as our ocean liners are ahead of sailing ships.

Flight-is in its infancy, and a host of men are working and dreaming- about it. We may never reach the moon, as the ancients fondly dreamed, but there are astonishing things to come.