Dirigible Balloons

CHICAGO ILLINOIS

U.S.A.

AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE

COPYRIGHTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

INTRODUCTION

Of the first attempts of men to emulate the flight of birds, we have no knowledge, but one of the earliest, perhaps, is embodied in the myth of Icarus and Daedalus. Xerxes, it is said, possessed a throne which was drawn through the air by eagles. The Chinese have sometimes been given credit for the invention of the balloon, as they have for many other scientific discoveries. It is related that a balloon was sent up at Pekin in celebration of the ascension of the throne by an emperor in the beginning of the fourteenth century.