The first experiment was made at Annonay, in Vivarais, MM. Mongolfier, the inventors; a globe formed of canvas and paper, 105 feet in circumference, filled with heated air, reached an uncalculated height. The same experiment has just been renewed in Paris before a great crowd. A globe of taffetas or light canvas covered by elastic gum and filled with inflammable air, has risen from the Champ de Mars, and been lost to view in the clouds, being borne in a north-westerly direction. One cannot foresee where it will descend.
It is proposed to repeat these experiments on a larger scale. Any one who shall see in the sky such a globe, which resembles ‘la lune obscurcie,’ should be aware that, far from being an alarming phenomenon, it is only a machine that cannot possibly cause any harm, and which will some day prove serviceable to the wants of society.
(Signed) De Sauvigny.
Lenoir.
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AERONAUTICS.
A complete bibliography of aeronautical works issued up to 1909, published by the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, gives no less than 13,500 entries of book pamphlets, and articles; in all probability, between that time and the present, the total has been more than doubled. The following is a list of outstanding work on the subject from the earliest times, and, in a good many cases, the works mentioned give further bibliographies. The Smithsonian publication, differentiating very little between the solid work on the subject and the magazine article, is of little use except to the advanced student of the subject; the following list is compiled with a view to directing attention to the more notable books and publications—a complete bibliography, as appendix to a work on aeronautics, is an impossibility:—
Prodromo All Arte Mæstra, by Francesco Lana. Brescia, 1670.
Mathematical Magic, by J. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester. London, 1691.
The Air Balloon, or a Treatise on the Aerostatic Globe. London, 1783.
Description des Experiences de la Machine Aerostatique, by F. St Fond. 2 vols. Paris, 1783.