GRAVE ANXIETY FOR MISSING AIRSHIP.

TOTAL LOSS FEARED.

A CREW OF FIFTY MEN.

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. PARIS, Wednesday Night.

There is still no news of the giant French airship Dixmude. which, with her crew of fifty officers and men, has disappeared while cruising over Northern Africa without leaving the slightest clue to her whereabouts. When she left the airship base at Cuers-pierrefeu, near Toulon, at six o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, the 18th, the airship had on board, including reserves, sufficient fuel for a five-day flight; but if she is still in the air she must have been flying for eight days, which would constitute a world’s record for duration of flight. This is regarded by experts as impossible in the present case. In this connection it is pointed out that an airship like the Dixmude could not simply drift when her fuel was exhausted, as, in order to retain her position in the air, her motors must be running. If they failed her nose would dip earthward and she would descend helplessly. Anxiety on account of the missing airship is hourly increasing and, of course, there is a crop of rumours and theories, which, however, add nothing to the definite knowledge of her fate.

The last occasion on which the Dixmude was actually seen was at two o’clock on the morning of Dec. 21 about seventy miles from Biskra. There are at least three later reports of airship lights having been seen by night over Southern Tunis. According to these the vessel was first seen moving seaward, but afterwards turned and flew westward toward the land again. But it has to be borne in mind that only lights were seen, and as no observers claim to have seen the outline of the vessel it is considered quite possible that these reports may have been incorrect. The mystery has been deepened by the failure of the airship to respond to the numerous wireless signals sent out to her. The last occasion on which she was in communication with any land station was shortly after three o’clock on Saturday afternoon. This communication proved unsatisfactory, for no sooner had the Medenine station, near the Gulf of Gabes, heard the vessel’s appeal for help than the mast supporting the aerial was snapped by the wind and it was impossible to carry on the conversation. At this moment the Dixmude was drifting out over the Gulf of Gabes. She had then been battling for over fifty hours against a violent gale, in which she seems to have been unable to control her own course and to have drifted at the mercy of the wind.