The First Company Dissolved Through Lack of Funds
Zeppelin made three flights with his first airship, on the third making 17.8 miles per hour (8 meters per second) but the funds had become exhausted and overtures to the Government and industrial concerns failing, he dissolved the stock company and began anew his struggle for capital. Somehow or other people were not interested in aerial navigation. They were less willing to invest their resources in experimental machines. For five years Zeppelin labored tirelessly to make persons believe in his project. He personally traveled the length and breadth of the land endeavoring to show that this was an enterprise so stupendous in its possibilities and importance to the world that it should be substantially endorsed.