Print, Lithograph on Paper, AN EXACT REPRESENTATION OF THE FIRST AERIAL SHIP, THE EAGLE

Diagrammatic illustration of British dirigible, "The Eagle," with various components lettered, A through E, with accompanying explanatory key beneath. Jules Henri Giffard, a brilliant steam engineer who had invented the steam injector, a device for charging pressurized vessels, was drawn into aeronautics in when he worked with the Comte de Lennox, a French military officer, to develop the Eagle, a balloon designed to be rowed across the sky. The craft was exhibted in London but was destroyed by an angry mob in Paris when it failed to ascenter on August 17, 1834. Giffard built and flew the first marginally successful pressure airship at Paris in 1852.