Viewing page 30 of 60

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

still lying on the ground. After the poles were erected, the tend was raised to provide an open span shelter for the airship. Knabenshue patented this tent and obtained Patent 858,875. Gas generating apparatus also had to be provided, as well as numerous other accessories and these, together with the aeronaut and necessary crews of helpers, had to be transported from place to place, wherever exhibitions were held.

At the end of an engagement, the airship was deflated, the tent struck, and all of the apparatus along with the people loaded into a Railway Express car, obtained at theatrical rates, and transported to the next stop. Then came unloading, transportation to the place of the exhibition, erection of the hanger-tent, followed by inflation of the gasbag and other preparations for the flight.

The hydrogen generating equipment consisted of two round wooden tanks about five feet in diameter and four feet high with a brass-trimmed porthole in the top center for charging iron chips and (zinc) water, a flanged lead pipe at one side, which could be stopped up, for introduction of sulphuric acid and, on the opposite side, a whole to which a varnished cloth tube could be attached to carry off the hydrogen gas. In the line between the gas generators and the airship was a slightly smaller box containing lime and straw, including acid fumes which could damage the bag.

To start the gas generator, it was necessary to buy a ton of drill chips and lathe turnings and about a ton of sulphuric acid. Then it was necessary to tend the generators for 9 to 12 hours until

15