“Home Rule is passed,” cried a wiseacre close by.
However, the illustrations gave satisfaction, and produced a lively cheer without causing any ill-feeling, so that Tom Trigger was called upon next to bring forth the two parachutes, which gave rise to some sensational expectations, especially on the part of a bystander, who looked like a provincial balloonist, and who exclaimed, with a depreciatory laugh,—
“Oh! they are going to do a drop!”
“Are they?” said Trigger; “it will be with something hot then if they do.”
“What a pity,” remarked one of the directors, sotto voce; “that will spoil all.”
The parachutes, however, were attached to the netting of the large balloon—one on each side. Then Mr Brock, the pyrotechnist, came forward with his assistants and produced two hoops, on which a number of bombshells were fixed, and these petards gave rise to singular apprehensions, but the aeronaut explained as did the firework maker, that they would not prove risky according to the way in which Mr Goodall intended to employ them, as they could not explode until they and the parachutes were lowered a certain distance from the balloon, and even then a second precautionary measure would have to be resorted to before any explosion could take place. They were simply designed to illustrate the application of parachutes for warlike purposes, and were not intended for bringing down acrobatic balloonists in safety.
This lucid and unlooked-for explanation proved so far satisfactory, that the amateur aeronaut and his assistant took their places in the car, when the after arrangements were so carefully made that the liberation of the balloon was not attended by so much risk as the uninitiated expected. The ascent was grand in the extreme, and when the first parachute was detached, and it immediately spread out, all fear was lost in admiration, particularly when the first shell dropped about 200 feet and exploded with the sound of a twelve-pounder; then followed another shell, which burst at about 500 feet lower down, and after that a succession of discharges took place, illustrative of the manner in which naval or military forces could be harassed through the instrumentality of parachutes and bombs in conjunction with balloons, either with or without the personal aid of practical men in the car. And Mr Goodall further demonstrated, by the use of a second parachute, how the line of bombardment could be kept up, and how a number of comparatively small balloons could thus sustain a properly organised aerial attack, without any far-fetched pretensions of introducing navigable machines of foreign types, which would not act as designed perhaps. But, with those proposed, it would only be necessary to take up a suitable position on the windward side of a hostile force to apply with advantage such up-to-date contrivances which have not as yet been turned to an available account in the way set forth in these pages, for it is indisputable that “The Powers that be” are too often looking abroad for new lights and men with unpractical schemes, while they ignore experienced air-travellers at home, who could show them a more excellent method of using balloons and parachutes, even without waiting for navigable machines, which would admittedly facilitate such operations in mid-air if they could be depended upon to act in the way they have been promised to do by sanguine inventors. It must not be forgotten, however, that military aeronauts, in the pursuit of their speciality, could not rely upon grand expectations during the tug of war. At such a time, in an emergency, England would have to provide the right men in the right place, and to build only such contrivances as had been thoroughly tested.
When Harry Goodall’s balloon lost the weight of the parachutes and their appendages, it rose to a considerable elevation, exceeding 7000 feet from the earth, and here he was compelled to lessen his altitude, as the drift of the upper current was straight for the mouth of the river; but as he was not more than three miles in a direct line from the Crystal Palace, he determined at this distance to try his old preceptor’s idea of long-distance signalling, which he proceeded to do in the following way.
He had with him a smaller balloon which was not very much more than half inflated with air, effected by means of a fan. He had informed his friend, Mr Deck, before starting, that if he lowered this from a reel, which was fixed across the hoop to four times the length of the balloon and car, the signal would mean a distance of 250 feet, a second indication on the scale would imply 500 feet, and these relative heights would enable the spectators to form some idea of what the barometrical height really was; as the first signal, indicative of 250 feet, would be nearly equal to a quarter of an inch less pressure, and the 500 feet signal of the inverted air balloon would imply nearly half an inch of reduced pressure of air near the barometer. Thus this long-distance signalling, which the writer of these remarks first introduced at the Crystal Palace in the year 1880, would enable the spectators to form an approximate estimate of the height attained by the balloon, though previously no such intimation had ever been given from the explorers to those who were watching their ascent from below.