Now as regards what the balloon shall take up, that must be for your own taste to decide. All the resources of pyrotechny are open to you, and by discreet use of Bickford’s fuse and quickmatch you may get innumerable combinations. One of the most brilliant pyrotechnic devices is the ignition of a tuft of magnesium fillet; but it is somewhat expensive, and, if carried out, will make a hole in your pocket-money. All the magnesium balloons I have seen had the magnesium tuft ignited before the balloon was let off; but were it desired that the magnesium should only commence burning when the balloon had got some way upon it, nothing would be more easy. All that is necessary to do would be to wet the magnesium tuft with resin dissolved in benzoline, and then, whilst still wet, dust it over with mealed gunpowder. On drying, this prepared tuft will burst into flame on the slightest provocation. If you do not know how to effect this by judicious employment of Bickford fuse and quickmatch, I shall have written to small purpose.
The following hint is well worthy attention by such of you young gentlemen as are not overburdened with pocket-money. Fine zinc shavings will burn, and emit a bright light something after the style of magnesium, and may be procured at any zinc-worker’s for a mere trifle. A moderately brilliant effect may be got out of a tuft of zinc shavings well dusted with resin and mealed powder whilst made wet with benzoline. If you don’t expect too much out of this zinc-burning expedient, perhaps you will not be disappointed; but at any rate I have not commended the alternative to you very warmly. Of course, a portion of magnesium may be mixed up with the zinc shaving tuft, to the latter’s advantage, just as it has been experimentally proved that flint soup is all the better for a portion of onion and carrot, and better still for a portion of meat, peppered and salted.
Before concluding let me just hint at a very effective possibility in the way of pyrotechnic device, equally applicable to both fire and gas balloons, but which I have never known carried into practice. You will see that it is a main object in balloon pyrotechny to make a balloon carry the greatest amount of pyrotechnic effects using the minimum of weight. Thus, supposing it were desired to cause a succession of explosions, each equalling in noise the discharge of a forty-pounder cannon, large maroons would give such a noise, but no toy balloon would be competent to lift the maroons. Now a mixture of two volumes hydrogen with one of oxygen yields an explosive mixture of tremendous violence. Even a small soap-bubble blown with this mixture and fired is deafening. I have no doubt that an ox bladder filled with this mixture and ignited would make a report equal to that of a forty-pounder gun. Several such bladders might be sent up with a very small toy balloon, and might be detached by means already described, so as to explode whilst falling. The exact modus operandi would be as follows:—Take a blue-light, and with a bradawl make a few transverse holes just above the sealing-wax closure; then smear the closed and transversely perforated end with a paste of mealed powder and water. After drying the neck of the bladder already charged with mixed oxygen and hydrogen, it is to be tightly bound down upon the blue-light, thus—
Bickford fuse and quickmatch would easily enable you to achieve the rest, supposing you to have given proper attention to preceding instructions.
CHAPTER LX.—MODEL BALLOONS AND ALL ABOUT THEM.
By a Professional Aëronaut and Balloon-maker.
