MEDAL AWARDED BY THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT
In the air, where all is new, the routine navigation of a dirigible balloon, requiring for foundation the united experiences of the spherical balloonist and the automobile "chauffeur," makes demands upon the lone captain's coolness, ingenuity, quick reasoning, and a kind of instinct that comes with long habit.
Urged on by these considerations, my great object in the autumn of 1901 was to find a favourable place for practice in aerial navigation.
My swiftest and best air-ship—"The Santos-Dumont No. 6"—was in perfect condition. The day after winning the Deutsch prize in it my chief mechanician asked me if he should tighten it up with hydrogen. I told him yes. Then, seeking to let some more hydrogen into it, he discovered something curious. The balloon would not take any more! It had not lost a single cubic unit of hydrogen!
The actual winning of the Deutsch prize had cost only a few litres of petroleum!
Just as the Paris winter of biting winds, cold rains, and lowering skies was approaching I received an intimation that the Prince of Monaco, himself a man of science celebrated for his personal investigations, would be pleased to build a balloon house directly on the beach of La Condamine, from which I might dart out on the Mediterranean, and so continue my aerial practice through the winter.
The situation promised to be ideal. The little bay of Monaco, sheltered from behind against the wind and cold by mountains, and from the wind and sea on either side by the heights of Monte Carlo and Monaco town, would make a well-protected manœuvre ground.
The air-ship would be always ready, filled with hydrogen gas. It could slip out of the balloon house to profit by good weather, and back again for shelter at the approach of squalls. The balloon house would be erected on the edge of the shore, and the whole Mediterranean would lie before me for guide-roping.