At the beginning of the 19th century, there was great enthusiasm that the emerging airship travel would bring about even greater upheavals than the railway and the automobile. The possibility of being able to effortlessly reach any place on Earth, at least theoretically, fascinated not only engineers and technicians. It is therefore not surprising that this book from 1907 enjoyed an extraordinarily popular status at the time. It describes the opportunities and risks of air travel from all possible perspectives - technology, economy, politics, and even military. The Publisher of Sciences publishes historical literature by both well-known and lesser-known scientific authors. This makes works that have long been out of print accessible again to interested readers. The present book is an unaltered reprint of the historical original edition.