Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/79



These experiments had only one aim—the application of Montgolfier's discovery to aerial navigation. The knowledge gained in the Faubourg St. Antoine having led to the most favourable conclusions, it was resolved that a first aerial voyage should be attempted.

"If," says Linguet, "there existed an autograph journal, written by Columbus, descriptive of his first great voyage with what jealous care it would be preserved, with what confidence it would be quoted! We should delight to follow the candid account which he gave of his thoughts, his hopes, his fears; of the complaints of his followers, of his attempts to calm them, and, finally, of his joy in the moment which, ratifying his word and justifying his boldness, declared him the discoverer of a new world. All these details have been transmitted to us, but by stranger hands; and, however interesting they may be, one cannot help feeling that this circumstance makes them lose part of their value."

The narrative of the first aerial voyage, written by one of the two first aeronauts, exists, and we are in a position to place it before our readers. Such an enterprise certainly demanded great courage in him who was the first to dare to confide himself to the unknown currents of the atmosphere. It threatened him with dangers, perhaps with death by a fall, by fire, by cold, or by straying into the mysterious