Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/66

48 experiment in presence of a numerous assembly in the garden in front of the Hotel de Surgeres. The little balloon mounted freely, but was held in, like a kite, by means of a silk thread. In the course of the same afternoon, the baron took down the balloon and filled it anew with hydrogen, and then let it off. The spectators had the pleasure of seeing it rise to a great height, and pass away in the direction of Neuilly, and it is said to have been found at a distance of several leagues, by peasants.

However trifling this experiment may appear at first sight, it added a new fact to the science of aerostation. The material employed by the baron was lighter and better than paper. It was what is called gold-beaters' skin. This skin is simply the interior lining of the large bowel of the ox. It is carefully prepared, is relieved of the fat, stringy and uneven parts, is dried, and is afterwards softened. Little balloons of this material came to be the fashion, and they are still frequently seen.

At the same time, Montgolfier was busy constructing, at the request of the Academy of Sciences, a balloon seventy feet high and forty in diameter, with which it was proposed to repeat the experiment of Annonay. He took up his quarters in the magnificent gardens of his friend Reveillon, proprietor of the royal manufactory of stained paper in the Faubourg St. Antoine. The new balloon was of a very singular shape: the upper part represented a prism, twenty-four feet high; the top was a pyramid of the same height; the lower part was a truncated cone, twenty feet in depth. It was made of packing-cloth, lined with good paper, both inside and out.

The gossipping and prolix Faujas de Saint Fond thus describes this machine:—"It was painted blue, represented