escaped unscratched.  Santos-Dumont, in spite of his quiet ways and almost effeminate speech, his diminutive body, and wealth that permitted him to enjoy every luxury, persisted in his work with rare courage and determination.  The difficulties were great and the available information meager to the last degree.  The young inventor had to experiment and find out for himself the obstacles to success and then invent ways to surmount them.  He had need of ample wealth, for the building of air-ships was expensive business.  The balloons were made of the finest, lightest Japanese silk, carefully prepared and still more vigorously tested.  They were made by the most famous of the world’s balloon-makers, Lachambre, and required the spending of money unstintedly.  The motors cost according to their lightness rather than their weight, and all the materials, cordage, metal-work, etc., were expensive for the same reason.  The cost of the hydrogen gas was very great also, at twenty cents per cubic meter (thirty-five cubic feet); and as at each ascension all the gas was usually lost, the expense of each sail in the air for gas alone amounted to from $57 for the smallest ship to $122 for the largest.

[Illustration:  SANTOS-DUMONT IN HIS AIR-SHIP “NO. 6” ROUNDING THE EIFFEL TOWER ON HIS PRIZE-WINNING TRIP]

Nevertheless, in November of 1899 Santos-Dumont launched another air-ship—­No. 3.  This one was supported by a balloon of much greater diameter, though the length remained about the same—­sixty-six feet.  The capacity, however, was almost three times as great as No. 1, being 17,655 cubic feet.  The balloon was so much larger that the less expensive but heavier illuminating gas could be used instead of hydrogen.  When the air-ship “Santos-Dumont No. 3” collapsed and dumped its navigator into the trees, Santos-Dumont’s friends took it upon themselves to stop his dangerous experimenting, but he said nothing, and straightway set to work to plan a new machine.  It was characteristic of the man that to him the danger, the expense, and the discouragements counted not at all.

In the afternoon of November 13, 1899, Santos-Dumont started on his first flight in No. 3.  The wind was blowing hard, and for a time the great bulk of the balloon made little headway against it; 600 feet in air it hung poised almost motionless, the winglike propeller whirling rapidly.  Then slowly the great balloon began nosing its way into the wind, and the plucky little man, all alone, beyond the reach of any human voice, could not tell his joy, although the feeling of triumph was strong within him.  Far below him, looking like two-legged hats, so foreshortened they were from the aeronaut’s point of view, were the people of Paris, while in front loomed the tall steel spire of the Eiffel Tower.  To sail round that tower even as the birds float about had been the dream of the young aeronaut since his first ascension.  The motor was running smoothly, the balloon skin was taut, and everything was working well; pulling the rudder slightly, Santos-Dumont headed directly for the great steel shaft.