Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/106

88 establishment where balloons were constantly maintained for the accommodation of amateurs of both sexes who wished to make ascents in what were called "ballons captifs," or balloons anchored, so to speak, to the earth by means of long ropes. They were for a considerable time the rage of fashionable society, and it is not recorded that any accidents resulted from the practice. Of course it may be easily understood with these safe balloons the adventurous aeronauts never ascended to any great height. The reader will find this subject treated under the chapter of military aerostation.

We are at present specially engaged with the narrative of the first attempts in aerostation—the first experiments in the new discovery. We have followed with interest the exciting details of the first adventurous ascents, in which the genius of man first essayed the unexplored paths of the heavens. Yet a continued record of aerial voyages would not be of the same interest. The results of subsequent expeditions, and the impressions of subsequent aeronauts are the same as those already described, or differ from them only in minor points. No important advance is recorded in the art. We shall therefore endeavour not to confine ourselves to the narrative of a dry and monotonous chronology, but to select from the number of ascents that have taken place within the last eighty years, only those whose special character renders them worthy of more detailed and severe investigation.

In order to give an idea of the rapid multiplication of aeronautic experiments, it will suffice to state that the only aeronauts of 1783 are Roziers, the Marquis d'Arlandes, Professor Charles, his collaborateur the younger Robert, and a carpenter, named Wilcox, who made ascents at Philadelphia and London.