Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/211

Rh CELEBRATED AERONAUTS ] ing, with the chimney, 980 Ib. This furnace was fed by straw; and the &quot;car&quot; consisted of a gallery sur rounding it. Two ascents of this balloon were made from Cremorne Gardens, on July 20 and July 28, 1864. After the first journey the balloon descended at Greenwich, and after the second at Walthamstow, where it was in jured by being blown against a tree. Notwithstanding the enormous size of the balloon, M. Godard asserted that it could be inflated in half an hour, and the inflation at Cremorne did not occupy more than an hour. The ascent of the balloon was a very striking sight, the flames roaring up the chimney of the furnace into the enormous globe above. The trasses of straw were suspended by ropes from the gallery below the car, and were drawn up and placed in the furnace as required. This was the first fire-balloon seen by the inhabitants of London, and it was the second ascent of this kind that had been made in this country, Mr Sneath s ascent at Mansfield having been the first, as Mr Tytler s experiment at Edinburgh in 1784 was a leap, not an ascent, as no source of heat was taken up. In spite of the rapidity with which the inflation was effected, few who saw the ascent could fail to receive an impression most favourable to the gas-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. In the summer of 1873 the proprietors of the New York Daily Graphic, an illustrated paper, determined to con struct a very large balloon, and enable Mr Wise, the well- known American aeronaut, to realise his favourite scheme of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. It was believed by many that a current from west to east existed con stantly at heights above 10,000 feet, but this seems very uncertain. Mr Green having stated that he had met with such a current, Mr Glaisher made a point of investigating the directions of the wind at different heights in his ascents, but found that they were as capricious as near the ground. The same result was found by others, and a comparison of the courses of the balloons sent up from Paris during the siege will show that no constant current exists. The American project came to nothing owing to the quality of the material of which the balloon was made. The size was said to be such as to contain 400,000 cubic feet, so that it would lift a weight of 14,000 Ib. On Septem ber 12, 1873, during its inflation, Mr Wise declared the material of which it was made was so bad that he could not ascend in it, though the other two persons who were to accompany him agreed to go. When, however, 325,000 feet of gas had been put into the balloon, a rent was ob served, and the whole rapidly collapsed. Although this accident was greatly regretted at the time, it seems pretty certain, from what subsequently took place, that the aeronauts would not have succeeded in their object, and a serious mishap was probably avoided. On October 6, 1873, Mr Donaldson and two others ascended from New York in the balloon after it had been repaired, and effected a perilous descent in Connecticut. During the autumn of 1873 a great amount of discussion took place both in Eng land and America about the existence of the westerly current and the subject of aerostation. In September 1873 Mr Barnum, the well-known American showman, visited Eng land with the view of eliciting whether, in the opinion of those best qualified, there was sufficient probability of a successful result to induce him to undertake the construction of a suitable balloon. By aeronauts (omitting the pioneers Lunardi, Zambec- cari, and others who have been already spoken of) we mean persons who have followed ballooning as a business or trade. Of these, perhaps the best known and most successful have been Blanchard, Garncrin, the Sadlers, Mr Charles Green, Mr Wise, Mr Coxwell, and the brothers 193 Godard. Blanchard made, it is said, thirty-six ascents, his first having taken place on March 2, 1784. His wife also made many ascents; she was killed on July 7, 1819. Garnerin is said to have ascended more than fifty times ; he introduced night ascents with fireworks, &c., the first of which took place on August 4, 1807. We shall have occasion to refer to him again w r hen we treat of parachutes. Mr James Sadler made about sixty ascents, the first of which took place on October 12, 1784. His two sons, John and Windham, both followed in their father s steps; the latter was killed in 1817. In the minds of most Englishmen the practice of ballooning will, for a long time, be associated with the name of Mr Charles Green, the most celebrated of English aeronauts, who, having made his first ascent on July 19, 1821, only died in the year 1870, at a veiy advanced age. He is credited with 526 ascents by Mr Turnor; and from advertisements, &c., we see that in 1838 he had made 249. Mr Green may be said to have reduced ballooning to routine, and he made more ascents than any other person has ever accomplished. He accompanied Mr Welsh in his scientific ascents, and to him is also due the invention of the guide rope, which he used in many of his voyages with success. It merely con sisted of a rope not less than 1000 feet in length, which was attached to the ring of the balloon (from which the car is suspended), and hung down so that the end of it was allowed to trail along the surface of the ground, the object being to prevent the continual waste of gas and ballast that takes place in an ordinary balloon journey, as such an expenditure is otherwise always going on, owing to the necessity of keeping the balloon from getting either too high or too low. If a balloon provided with a guide rope sinks so low that a good deal of the rope rests on the earth, it is relieved of so much weight and rises again; if, on the contrary, it rises so high that but a little is supported by the earth, a greater weight is borne by the balloon, and equilibrium is thus produced. Mr Green frequently used the guide rope, and found that its action was satisfactory, and that it did not, as might be supposed, become entangled in trees, &c. It was used in the Nassau journey, but more recent aeronauts have dispensed with it. Still, in crossing the sea or making a very long journey, where the preser vation of the gas was of great importance, it could not fail to be valuable. Mr Green had, in his time, more experience in the management than has fallen to the lot of any one else, and he brought to bear on the subject a great amount of skill and practical knowledge. There is also a plain matter-of-fact style about his accounts of his ascents that contrasts very favourably with the writings of som other aeronauts. Mr Coxwell, who has made several hundred ascents, first ascended in 1844, under the name of Welis. He it was who, as aeronaut, accompanied Mr Glaisher in most of his scientific ascents, 1862-65. The Godard family have made very many ascents in France, and are well known in all countries in connection with aeronautics. It was to two of the Godards that the management of the military balloons in the Italian campaign was entrusted; it was M. Jules Godard who succeeded in opening the valve in the dangerous descent of Nadar s balloon in Hanover in 1863, and it was Eiigene Godard who constructed perhaps the largest Montgolfier ever made, an account of the ascen sions of which has been given above. M. Dupuis Delcourt was also a well-known aeronaut; he has written on the sub ject of aerostation, and his balloons were employed by MM. Bixio and Barral in their scientific ascents. In America Mr Wise is par excellence the aeronaut; he has made several hundred ascents, and many of them are distin guished for much skill and daring. He also appears to have pursued his profession with more energy and capacity than has any other aeronaut in recent times, and his History I. - 25