Page:EB1911 - Volume 01.djvu/300

Rh purpose he contrived a double balloon, which he expected would combine the advantages of both kinds—a fire-balloon, 10 ft. in diameter, being placed underneath a gas-balloon of 37 ft. in diameter, so that by increasing or diminishing the fire in the former it might be possible to ascend or descend without waste of gas. Rozier was accompanied by P. A. Romain, and for rather less than half an hour after the aerostat ascended all seemed to be going on well, when suddenly the whole apparatus was seen in flames, and the unfortunate adventurers came to the ground from the supposed height of more than 3000 ft. Rozier was killed on the spot, and Romain only survived about ten minutes. A monument was erected on the place where they fell, which was near the sea-shore, about 4 m. from the starting-point.

The largest balloon on record (if the contemporary accounts are correct) ascended from Lyons on the 19th of January 1784. It was more than 100 ft. in diameter, about 130 ft. in height, and when distended had a capacity, it is said, of over half a million cubic feet. It was called the “Flesselles” (from the name of its proprietor, we believe), and after having been inflated from a straw fire in seventeen minutes, it rose with seven persons in the car to the height of about 3000 ft., but descended again after the lapse of about a quarter of an hour from the time of starting, in consequence of a rent in the upper part.

Another large fire-balloon, 68 ft. in diameter, was constructed by the chevalier Paul Andreani of Milan, and on the 25th of February he ascended in it from Milan, remaining in the air for about twenty minutes. This is usually regarded as the first ascent in Italy (but see Monck Mason’s Aeronautica, p. 247).

On the 7th of November 1836, at half-past one o'clock, a large balloon containing about 85,000 cub. ft. of gas ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, London, carrying Robert Hollond, M.P., Monck Mason and Charles Green, and descended about two leagues from Weilburg, in the duchy of Nassau, at half-past seven the next morning, having thus traversed a distance of about 500 m. in 18 hours; Liege was passed in the course of the night, and Coblentz in the early morning. In consequence of this journey the balloon became famous as the “Nassau Balloon” (fig. 6). Charles Green (1785–1870), who constructed it and subsequently became its owner, was the most celebrated of English aeronauts, and made an extraordinary number of ascents. His first, made from the Green Park, London, on the 19th of July 1821 at the coronation of George IV., was distinguished for the fact that for the first time coal-gas was used instead of hydrogen for inflating the balloon. In 1828 he made an equestrian ascent from the Eagle Tavern, City Road, London, seated on his favourite pony. Such ascents have since been repeated; in 1852 Madame Poitevin made one from Cremorne Gardens, but was prevented from giving a second performance by police interference, the exhibition outraging public opinion. It was in descending from the “Nassau Balloon” in a parachute that Robert Cocking was killed in 1837 (see ). Green was the inventor of the guide-rope, which consists of a long rope trailing below the car. Its function is to reduce the waste of gas and ballast required to keep the balloon at a proper altitude. When a balloon sinks so low that a good deal of the guide-rope rests on the ground, it is relieved of so much weight and therefore tends to rise; if on the other hand it rises so that most of the rope is lifted off the ground, it has to bear a greater weight and tends to sink.

In 1863 A. Nadar, a Paris photographer, constructed “Le Geant,” which was the largest gas-balloon made up to that time and contained over 200,000 cub. ft. of gas. Underneath it was placed a smaller balloon, called a compensator, the object of which was to prevent loss of gas during the voyage. The car had two stories, and was, in fact, a model of a cottage in wicker-work, 8 ft. in height by 13 ft. in length, containing a small printing-office, a photographic department, a refreshment-room, a lavatory, &c. The first ascent took place at five o'clock on Sunday the 4th of October 1863, from the Champ de Mars. There were thirteen persons in the car, including one lady, the princess de la Tour d’Auvergne, and the two aeronauts Louis and Jules Godard. In spite of the elaborate preparations that had been made and the stores of provisions that were taken up, the balloon descended at nine o'clock, at Meaux, the early descent being rendered necessary, it was said, by an accident to the valve-line. At a second ascent, made a fortnight later, there were nine passengers, including Madame Nadar. The balloon descended at the expiration of seventeen hours, near Nienburg in Hanover, a distance of about 400 m. A strong wind was blowing, and it was dragged over the ground for 7 or 8 m. All the passengers were bruised, and some seriously hurt. The balloon and car were then brought to England, and exhibited at the Crystal Palace at the end of 1863 and beginning of 1864. The two ascents of Nadar’s balloon excited an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm and interest, vastly out of proportion to what they were entitled to. Nadar’s idea was to obtain sufficient money, by the exhibition of his balloon, to carry out a plan of aerial locomotion he had conceived possible by means of the principle of the screw; in fact, he spoke of “Le Geant” as “the last balloon.” He also started L’Aeronaute, a newspaper devoted to aerostation, and published a small book, which was translated into English under the title The Right to Fly.



Directly after Nadar’s two ascents, Eugene Godard constructed a fire-balloon of nearly half a million cubic feet capacity—more than double that of Nadar’s and only slightly less than that attributed to the “Flesselles” of 1783. The air was heated by an 18-ft. stove, weighing, with the chimney, 980 ℔. This furnace was fed by straw; and the “car” consisted of a gallery surrounding it. Two ascents of this balloon, the first fire-balloon seen in London, were made from Cremorne Gardens in July 1864. After the first journey the balloon descended at Greenwich, and after the second at Walthamstow, where it was injured by being blown against a tree. Notwithstanding its enormous size, Godard asserted that it could be inflated in half an hour, and the inflation at Cremorne did not occupy more than an hour. In spite of the rapidity with which the inflation was effected, few who saw the ascent could fail to receive an impression unfavourable to the fire-balloon in the matter of safety, as a rough descent, with a heated furnace as it were in the car, could not be other than most dangerous.