made a circular flight; starting from the aerodrome of the aero
club, he flew round the Eiffel Tower and back to the starting
point in thirty-one minutes on October 19th, 1902. For this feat
the Deutsch prize was awarded to him.

The envelopes he used were in design much nearer approach to a
streamline form than those previously adopted, but tapered to an
extremely fine point both at the both and stem. For rigging he
employed a long nacelle, in the centre of which was supported the
car, and unusually long suspensions distributed the weight
throughout practically the entire length of the envelope. To the
name of Santos-Dumont much credit is due. He may be regarded as
the originator of the airship for pleasure purposes, and by his
success did much to popularize them. He also was responsible to
a large extent for the development and expansion of the airship
industry in Paris.

At a little later date, in 1902 to be precise, the Lebaudy
brothers, in conjunction with Julliot, an engineer, and Surcoup,
an aeronaut, commenced building an airship of a new type. This
ship was a semirigid and was of a new shape, the envelope
resembling in external appearance a cigar. In length it was 178
feet with a diameter of 30 feet and the total capacity was 64,800
cubic feet. This envelope was attached to a rigid elliptical
keel-shaped girder made of steel tubes, which was about a third
of the length of the ship. The girder was covered with a
shirting and intended to prevent the ship pitching and rolling
while in flight. A horizontal rudder was attached to the under
side of this girder, while right aft a large vertical rudder was
fixed.