Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/162

 least that's what the book gave. But when I got over on the other side, during the war, I couldn't tell a bit of difference between their barnyard clatter and the fowl conversation we hear this side.

"Well, to get back to the airships—from that time, everybody went balloon crazy. All sorts of improvements were made in the machine. The silk was varnished, the bag was covered with a net, and the apparatus was furnished with a valve, barometer and sand-ballast. Instead of the old dangerous way of filling them with hot air from a fire, hydrogen or coal gas was used. Then the parachute game began, with more than one broken neck and pancake landing, as we used to call a plane smash-up in France.

"Then, before the end of the eighteenth century, balloons began to be used in war to observe the enemy, same thing our sausage affairs are used for now. In addition to this, they were used by scientists to sample the upper atmosphere. One fellow got as high as 23,000 feet—over four miles. Our country too, has had fans do all sorts of daredevil stunts with balloons, flying from coast to coast and what not. Pretty