MY AIRSHIPS
ducing work. Then it goes up, throwing out the product of combustion. Thus with the two cylinders there was one explosion for every turn of the shaft.
Wishing to have my mind clear on the question I took my tricycle, just as it was after I had left the Paris-Amsterdam race, and, accompanied by a capable companion, I steered it to a lonely part of the Bois de Boulogne. There in the forest I chose a great tree with low-hanging limbs. From two of them we suspended the motor tricycle by three ropes.
When we had well established the suspension my companion aided me to climb up and seat myself on the tricycle saddle. I was as in a swing. In a moment I would start the motor and learn something of my future success or failure.
Would the vibration of the explosive engine shake me back and forth, strain at the ropes until it had unequalised their tension, and then break them one by one? Would it jar the interior air balloon's pump and derange the big balloon's valves? Would it continually jerk and
pull at the silk hems and the thin rods which were to hold my basket to the balloon? Free from the steadying influence of the solid ground,
104
