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 SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS—APPLICATIONS OF BALLOONING.

CHAPTER I.

EXPERIMENTS OF ROBERTSON, LHOEST, SACCAROF, &C.

is regarded by many as a sort of mountebank; yet such men as Arago have put themselves to the trouble of examining the aerostatic feats of this aeronaut, and of examining the results of his observations.

"The savant Robertson," says Arago, "performed at Hamburg on the 18th of July, 1803, with his countryman, Lhoest, the first aeronautic voyage from which science has been able to draw useful deductions. The two aeronauts remained suspended in the air during five hours, and came down near Hanover, twenty-five leagues from the spot from which they set off."

The first time that Robertson appears in the annals of aerostation is in 1802, on the occasion of the sale of the balloon used at the battle of Fleurus, of which mention will be made in the chapter on military aerostation. But three years previously he had been instructed to make a balloon of an original form, which should ascend in honour of the Turkish ambassador at the garden of Tivoli. The fête was