Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/197



will conclude this second part by giving a brief notice of some of those who, in the early days of aerostation, fell martyrs to their devotion to the new cause, and sometimes victims to their own want of foresight and their inexperience.

First among these is Pilâtre des Roziers, with whose courage and ingenuity our readers are already familiar. After the passage of Blanchard from England over to France this hero, who was the first to trust himself to the wide space of the sky, resolved to undertake the return voyage from France to England—a more difficult feat, owing to the generally adverse character of the winds and currents. In vain did Roziers' friends attempt to make him understand the perils to which this enterprise must expose him; his only reply was that he had discovered a new balloon which united in itself all the necessary conditions of security, and would permit the voyager to remain an unusually long time in the air. He asked and obtained from government the sum of 40,000 livres, in order to construct his machine. It then became clear what sort of balloon he had contrived. He united in one machine the two modes previously made use of in aerostation. Underneath a balloon filled with hydrogen gas, he suspended a Montgolfière, or a balloon filled with hot air from a fire. It is difficult to understand what was his precise object in making this combination, for his ideas seem to have been confused upon the subject. It