Fig. 11.—Car of Nadar’s Balloon.
The first ascension, made on Sunday, October 4, 1863, was one of magnificent promise. In the midst of a vast holiday throng on the Champ de Mars, the great globe towered aloft nearly two hundred feet, held to earth by one hundred men and twice as many sand bags. In the car were fifteen notable passengers including one lady, the fair young Princess de la Tour d’Auvergne, in morning toilet and a pretty hat. “Lachez tout!” shouts Captain Nadar, the effervescent photographer of Paris. Away they soar, heading for St. Petersburg, with provisions enough to sail beyond the polar sea.
The captain was now in supreme control, with the key to the victual and liquor room in his pocket, and his twelve commandments duly signed by all aboard. They had pledged themselves not to gamble, not to carry inflammable materials, not to smoke unduly, not to throw bottles overboard, not to quit the balloon without permission, but to descend if so ordered, etc. They had sailed at five o’clock in the evening and all was going merrily. But presently trouble came. The valve rope gave way, the vessel was sailing in the dark, and the Godards declared she was drifting to sea, whereas she was drifting in quite the opposite direction. To be on the safe side they threw out the anchors by permission of the commander. One anchor broke, but the other took hold and checked the balloon in spite of the strong wind blowing. At last after three violent bumps on the ground they landed near Meaux at nine o’clock in the evening, one passenger sustaining a broken knee, the others various bruises. It was a grand adventure and all were pleased.
Two weeks later a second voyage was begun in similar style, and again from the Champ de Mars, this time in the presence of the King of France and the young King George of Greece; but now Nadar took along, not the Princess with the pretty hat, but Madame Nadar, his wife. To entertain the crowd before starting, thirty-two persons were first sent aloft 300 feet and drawn back to earth. Finally at five o’clock Sunday evening, October 18th, a party of nine passengers soared proudly northward, well provisioned as before, and eager for a long voyage. They disappeared in the gathering night, leaving their friends much concerned for their safety and ultimate destination. At half past eight they were over Compiegne, seventy-eight miles away, drifting near the ground to say “All goes well” and have the good tidings transmitted to Paris. At nine they crossed the Belgian frontier; at midnight they were over Holland; at sunrise they skirted the Zuyder Zee and entered Hanover; at eight they were coursing headlong toward Nienburg and the North Sea in the current of a swift west wind.
They were now in great peril. If they went to sea they might all be drowned; if they came to earth at such horizontal speed they should be terribly pounded. Choosing the latter evil, they opened the valve and threw down the grappling irons. “To the ropes,” shouted the Godard brothers. Assembling on deck all clung to the suspension ropes to mitigate the shock of landing. Nadar put his arm about his wife to protect her. The anchors snatching a tree, uprooted and dragged it along; then caught and tore off the roof of a house; threshed into a telegraph line pulling down the wires and poles; struck into some firmer obstacle and broke off completely, leaving the huge monster to sweep unchecked in the violent ground current. Owing to trouble with the valve, the gas could not be liberated quickly; the great vessel again and again plunged to earth and rebounded high in air, its ponderous basket crashing through heavy timber, and breaking down whatever opposed its course. For nine miles they pounded over the plain by Nienburg toward the sea, dashing into pools, bogs and thickets, their limbs sprained or broken, their bodies bruised, their faces splashed with mud. Presently through loss of gas the rebounding ceased, the basket dragged along the earth squeezing some of the passengers beneath it, and dumping others out on the ground, leaving them behind. Those remaining tried to assist Madam Nadar to land, but they were tumbled out and she was caught under the basket from which she was extricated with much difficulty, when the balloon was finally halted. Thus their memorable voyage of seventeen hours, covering 750 miles, had a terrific, though not fatal ending. One had a broken femur, another a dislocated thigh, others numerous scratches and contusions. But no complaint was uttered; for the afflictions were regarded as natural concomitants to such interesting sport. After some days tender nursing by the Germans, and solicitous inquiries from the King of Hanover, they returned to Paris; some indeed on their backs, but for all that, none the less admired by their countrymen, as survivors of a marvelous adventure.
Another valiant English leader in aërostation was James Glaisher, member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. As one of a committee of twelve appointed by that body in 1861, to explore the higher strata of the atmosphere by means of the balloon, he volunteered his services as an observer, when no other capable man could offer to do so. With a professional aëronaut, Mr. Coxwell, and a new balloon specially constructed for the work, cubing 90,000 feet, he made eleven ascensions for the society, four from Wolverhampton, seven from Woolwich. Incidentally he made seventeen other ascents of various altitude; not at the expense of the committee, but as a scientific passenger in public balloon ascents advertised beforehand.
The objects of the enterprise were first to study the physical conditions of the atmosphere; secondly to study the effect of the higher regions upon the passengers themselves, and some pigeons, which they carried along; thirdly to make some observations in acoustics and magnetism, particularly to determine the period of oscillation of a magnet at various altitudes. The specific study of the atmosphere itself was to comprise observations at all altitudes, of the temperature of the air, its pressure, and percentage of moisture; observations of the velocity and direction of the wind, the constitution of the clouds, their height, density and depth, the constitution and electrical properties of the air. They were also to collect samples of the air at different elevations, which later might be examined in the laboratory. Thus the voyages were systematically planned for scientific research, and were the first thorough attempts in England, though similar efforts had been made previously in France. It may be added that Glaisher’s observations were the most important made during the first century of aëronautics, and may be found fully detailed by that hardy investigator himself in the British Association Reports for 1862–66.
Mr. Glaisher’s most interesting voyage of that memorable series occurred on September 5, 1862. Starting from Wolverhampton at three minutes after one o’clock, they soared swiftly upward, passing through a cloud eleven hundred feet thick and emerging in a glorious field of sunlight with an amethystine sky above and a boundless sea of vapor beneath; a sea of rolling hills and mountain chains, with great snow-white masses steaming up from their surface. They had left the noisy bustle of earth in the comfortable temperature of 59°; in three quarters of an hour, they were five miles aloft in a deadly silent atmosphere, two degrees below zero, and approaching one third its usual density, the balloon neck white with hoar frost, the men gasping for breath. Here the observations became increasingly interesting but immensely more difficult. They are graphically told in the following extract from Mr. Glaisher’s classical report:
“I asked Mr. Coxwell to help me to read the instruments, as I experienced a difficulty in seeing. In consequence, however, of the rotatory motion of the balloon, which had continued without ceasing since the earth had been left, the valve-line had become twisted, and he had to leave the car and mount into the ring above to adjust it. At this time I looked at the barometer, and found it to be 10 inches, still decreasing fast; its true reading therefore, was 9¾ inches, implying a height of 29,000 feet. Shortly afterwards I laid my arm upon the table, possessed of its full vigor, and on being desirous of using it, I found it powerless; it must have lost its power momentarily. I tried to move the other arm, and found it powerless also. I then tried to shake myself, and succeeded in shaking my body. I seemed to have no limbs. I then looked at the barometer; whilst doing so my head fell on my left shoulder. I struggled and shook my body again, but could not move my arms. I got my head upright, but for an instant only, when it fell on my right shoulder, and then I fell backwards, my back resting against the side of the car, and my head on its edge; in this position my eyes were directed towards Mr. Coxwell in the ring. When I shook my body I seemed to have full power over the muscles of the back and considerable power over those of the neck, but none over either my arms or my legs; in fact I seemed to have none. As in the case of the arms, all muscular power was lost in an instant from my back and neck. I dimly saw Mr. Coxwell in the ring and endeavored to speak, but could not; when in an instant intense black darkness came, the optic nerve finally lost power suddenly. I was still conscious, with as active a brain as at the present moment whilst writing this. I thought I had been seized with asphyxia, and that I should experience no more, as death would come, unless we speedily descended; other thoughts were actively entering my mind, when I suddenly became unconscious as in going to sleep. I cannot tell anything of the sense of hearing; the perfect stillness and silence of the regions six miles from the earth (and at this time we were between six and seven miles high) is such that no sound reaches the ear.