Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1894 — ANOTHER AIRSHIP. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ANOTHER AIRSHIP.

It la th« Invnatlon. of • 8m FraneUeo Cobbler. Jean Baptiste Gerber, inventor by Inclination, but cobbler through necessity, has constructed an airship, or the model of one. which he is confident is destined to solve the problem of aerial navigation and at the same time place him in affluence—yes, make him a millionaire. , To the eye of the uninitiated it seems a jumble of fans, flywheels and ropes, but each has an appointed purpose. There are the side propellers to lift ft into the blue empyrean, and the screws to drive it forward when it has attained the desired level. Its rise is assisted by a cigar-shaped affair that surmounts the whole, and which it is intended to fill with hydrogen or some light gas. This balloon, if it might be so called, is collapsible, and would then act as a parachute to ease the ship in descending to the earth. To this end there are also arranged on the bottom of the boat a number of heavy springs, which would give resilience to the structure and cause it to rebound should the contact be severe. At either end are curiously shaped sails, which are designed to aid the progress of the machine. The one aft is bell-shaped and the forward is cone-shaped. With the wind abaft they would materially aid the elec-

trical machines in driving the ship through the air, and with it forward their slngular/shape would lessen materially the resistance and act, as it were, as the sharp prow of a clipper in cleaving the waves. The structure is to be built of aluminum and is to be used in war for the destruction of cities and ships and m peace for the transportation of passengers and freight.—San Francisco Examiner.

COBBLER GERBER'S AIRSHIP.