"Tom, however did you do it?" gasped Ned at length.
"By hard work," was the modest reply. "I've been at this for a
longer time than you'd suppose, working on it at odd moments. I
had a lot of help, too, or I never could have done it. And now it
is nearly all finished, as far as the ship itself is concerned.
The only thing that bothers me is to provide for the recoil of
the guns I want to carry. Maybe you can help me with that. Come
on, now, I'll explain how the affair works, and what I hope to
accomplish with it."
In brief Tom's aerial warship was a sort of German Zeppelin
type of dirigible balloon, rising in the air by means of a gas
container, or, rather, several of them, for the section for
holding the lifting gas element was divided by bulkheads.
The chief difference between dirigible balloons and ordinary
aeroplanes, as you all know, is that the former are lifted from
the earth by a gas, such as hydrogen, which is lighter than air,
while the aeroplane lifts itself by getting into motion, when
broad, flat planes, or surfaces, hold it up, just as a flat stone
is held up when you sail it through the air. The moment the
stone, or aeroplane, loses its forward motion, it begins to fall.
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