Lunardi continued his voyage over the town into the country beyond. His balloon apparently attained a considerable height, for he found that the condensed moisture round the neck had frozen, and the gas, which to begin with had only two-thirds filled the balloon, presently expanded so much that he was obliged to untie the mouth to relieve the strain. He had taken up with him as companions a dog and a cat. The cat was very ill at ease in the cold of the upper regions, and he resolved to put her out; so, coming down to the ground, he handed her to a country woman standing in a field. Throwing out ballast, he then rose again and continued his voyage for some distance, eventually descending in a meadow near Ware. Some labourers were at work on the spot, but they at first refused to come near him, and a young woman was the first whom he could induce to help him out of his car. A stone with a long inscription, set up in a meadow in the parish of Standon, near Ware, marks to this day the place where the first of all English balloons touched ground.
The following year witnessed a yet bolder enterprise. Blanchard, a French aeronaut, and Dr. Jeffries, an American, determined on an attempt to cross the Channel. On a winter’s day, early in 1785, they had their balloon inflated with hydrogen at Dover and boldly cast off to sea. The cold air appeared to chill the gas more than they had foreseen, and long before they were across the Channel their balloon began settling down upon the water. They threw out all their ballast, then a number of books they were carrying, then their anchor, extra ropes, and other gear. Still it seemed very doubtful whether they would reach the French coast, and as a last resort they began even to throw away their clothes to lighten the balloon. Fortunately at this moment the balloon shot up into the air again, and eventually brought them down in safety near the forest of Guiennes.
So far, although several hundred ascents had been made, and in spite of the many and great dangers of the new-found art and the inexperience of the early voyagers, no fatal accident had marred the delight of sailing the skies. Disasters, however, were soon to come. It is sad to relate that the earliest to fall a victim was the brave Pilâtre de Rozier himself, the first of all men to go aloft in a balloon. Fired with a desire to emulate Blanchard and Jeffries, he decided that he himself would cross the Channel, this time from France to England; and to avoid, as he imagined, the cooling of the gas, which had so nearly proved disastrous on the previous occasion, he hit on the extraordinary idea of combining the principles of both the “Montgolfier” and “Charlier” balloons, and suspending a fire balloon beneath another filled with hydrogen gas. It seems a remarkable thing to us now that no one in those days saw the awful danger of such a combination. The inevitable happened. When the balloon was high in the air the furnace of the hot-air machine set fire to the highly inflammable hydrogen, a fearful explosion followed, and De Rozier and his companion were dashed to pieces.
CHAPTER III
FAMOUS BALLOON VOYAGES OF THE PAST
Unfortunately the death of Pilâtre de Rozier was but the first of a series of fatal accidents which marred the early years of the history of ballooning. Shortly afterwards another French aeronaut, going up in too shallow a car, fell overboard when at a great height and was killed. A little later Count Zambeccari, an Italian, ascended in a hot-air balloon, which, on coming near the earth, became entangled in a tree. The furnace it carried set fire to the silk. To escape from the flames, the Count leapt to the ground and was killed on the spot. A few years after, Madame Blanchard, wife of the man who first crossed the English Channel, made a night ascent from Paris with a number of fireworks hung from the car. These, in some way, ignited the balloon, which fell to the ground, killing the unfortunate lady in its fall.
On the other hand, many miraculous escapes are on record. One of the earliest balloonists spent the night alone aloft in the midst of a terrific thunder-storm, with the lightning flashing all around him, and yet descended in safety when morning broke. M. Garnerin, a famous French aeronaut of this date, also was lost in a storm. His balloon became unmanageable, and borne to earth was dashed against a mountain side, the occupant losing consciousness, until the balloon, which had ascended again, brought him safely down once more many miles away.
A marvellous escape took place in 1808, when two Italians ascended in a gas balloon from Padua and attained a great height, estimated as approaching 30,000 feet. Here the balloon burst, and came precipitately to the ground; and yet, despite the terrific fall, the aeronauts escaped with their lives. The explanation of this seeming impossibility was, no doubt, the tendency which a balloon, emptied of its gas, possesses to form a natural parachute. During a rapid fall the lower part of the silk will, if loose, collapse into the upper portion to form a kind of open umbrella, and thus very effectually break the descent. Many balloonists have owed their safety in similar accidents to this fortunate fact.
The bursting of balloons when at high altitudes has already been referred to as happening on several previous occasions. It is a danger which is always present when a balloon is aloft, unless due precautions are taken, and the neglect of these precautions has probably led to more ballooning accidents than any other cause. The explanation is simply the varying pressure exerted upon the bag of gas by the weight of the atmosphere. When an inflated balloon is resting upon the ground, the vast ocean of air above it is pressing upon it with a weight of approximately fifteen pounds to the square inch, and it is this pressure which prevents the enclosed gas from expanding beyond a certain limit. The balloon then rises high into the air, where the weight of atmosphere pressing upon it is much diminished. The higher it rises the less the pressure becomes, and the gas it holds soon expands so much that, unless a vent is provided for it, the balloon will burst. At the present day the neck of a balloon is always left wide open when the balloon is in the air, to allow of the escape of the gas during the ascent.
A perilous adventure befell Mr. Sadler, an English aeronaut, in 1812, whilst attempting to cross the Irish Channel. He started from Dublin with a wind which he hoped would carry him to Liverpool, but had gone only a short distance when he discovered a rent, which seemed to be increasing, in the silk of his balloon. Climbing the rigging with difficulty, he contrived to tie up the hole with his neckcloth. He was by this time over the sea, and having passed near the Isle of Man, found himself, as evening was approaching, close to the coast of North Wales. Here he endeavoured to seek a landing, but just at the critical moment the wind shifted, as it frequently does in this treacherous Channel, and he was quickly blown out to sea again. There he remained for another hour vainly endeavouring to make the land, and then, despairing of the attempt and seeing five ships beneath him, he came boldly down on the water, trusting they would come to his assistance.