“Last Sunday, about five o’clock in the afternoon, Green’s balloon sprung from the inclosure of the Hippodrome into the blue abyss of the heavens. The ascension of a balloon is certainly not a novelty at the present day; but an aerostat, like the one belonging to Green, is not of the ordinary class: its colossal dimensions, the extraordinary care with which it is constructed, the comfort of its arrangements, make it the wonder of aerial navigation, and place it in the rank of a vessel of a hundred guns. To see it swelling its enormous taffeta case under the net-work of cords which holds the car lined with red velvet, one feels perfectly at ease as to the dangerous chances of a voyage through the air. It would seem safer than an excursion in a diligence or upon a railroad. Admitted into the reserved inclosure, we of course saw the departure, being near the spot. Nothing could be more quiet or more gentle. Mr. Green, in a black coat and white cravat, like a gentleman going out to dine, stepped into his carriage—I should say his balloon—with confidence and self-possession. A charming young English girl, accompanied by a friend, had already taken her place in the boat or car. She was calm and smiling; animation tinged her cheeks slightly, but it arose rather from embarrassment at seeing so many eyes fixed upon her, than from any fear whatever. Her intelligent face breathed that confidence in the inventions of human genius, which characterizes the English and American races. A Parisian lady would have screamed loudly.
“The balloon held by cords, trembled, and balanced itself, preparing to take flight. A strong cord still held it to the earth, but soon, upon a signal from Mr. Green, the cable was cut, and the aerial vessel arose steadily, with a movement at once easy, powerful, and of exceeding majesty. As much as the locomotive has an infernal appearance, so has the balloon a celestial one, without any play upon words. The one borrows its auxiliaries from iron, coal, fire and boiling water; the other employs only silk and gas, a thin cloth filled with a light wind. The engine, with its frightful shrieks, its noisy rattling, and its black puffs of smoke, runs upon inflexible rails, roars through the bowels of the earth, and dives into the darkness of tunnels, seeming as if seeking some evil genius who might have invented it; the balloon, without noise and without effort, leaves the earth, where the laws of gravity hold us, and mounts tranquilly up toward heaven. Unhappily, the balloon, like the fancied inspiration of the poet, goes where the wind guides it; this every one knows; while the steam-engine, like prose, goes straight upon its road. Green and his balloon were soon overlooking Paris and all its horizon; long trails of sand, ballast that he threw over to raise himself higher, streaked the heavens with their white tracks, proving, by the time it took them to descend to the earth, the hight to which the intrepid aeronaut had mounted in a few minutes. He had disappeared, while the crowd was still looking for him, in the blue depths of the atmosphere. What a splendid and magnificent spectacle the triumphal arch, and the giant city with its black ants, illuminated by the setting sun, must have afforded him! What greatness, and at the same time what littleness! and how mean, from that distance, must seem the cares and ambitions of the world!
“While looking with the rest of the crowd, a world of thoughts came whirling through our brain. The balloon, which it was endeavored to make perform a useful part in the battle of Fleurus, and at the siege of Toulon, has only been considered, up to this time, as an amusing experiment of natural philosophy. It is made to figure in fetes and in public solemnities; for the crowd, who have more feeling for great things than academies and wise bodies, feel an interest in balloon ascensions, which has not diminished since the first attempts of Montgolfier. It is a profoundly human instinct, which induces us to follow into the air, until it is lost to the sight, this globe swelled with smoke, as if it contained the destinies of the future. Man, the king of creation in intelligence, is, physically, but indifferently endowed. He has neither the swiftness of the stag, the eye of the eagle, the scent of a dog, the wing of the bird, nor the fin of the fish; for everything in man is sacrificed to the brain. All these auxiliaries he has been forced to furnish himself by the skill of his hand and the sweat of his brow. The horse, the carriage and the rail-car make up to him for his want of speed; the telescope and the microscope equal the eagle’s eye; the compass enables him to follow a track as unerringly as a dog; the ship, the steamboat and the diving-bell open to him the dominion of the waters. Nothing remained but the air, where the bird escaped us, followed only a few hundred feet by the arrow or gun, ingenious means of bringing distances nearer together. It really seems as if God should have given us such wings as the painters lend the angels; but the beauty and grandeur of man consist in his not having these giant appendages, or being embarrassed by fins. With the power of thought, and the hand, that admirable tool, he must seek and find, out of himself, all his physical powers.
“The idea of mounting into the air is not new; it is not to-day that Phaeton asked to get into Phœbus’s car, and that Dædalus launched into the air his son Icarus. Their descents were only unaccomplished ascents. The griffins, the hippogriffs, the Pegasus, the winged shoes of Mercury, the arrow of Abarys, the carpet of the four Facardins, testify to the continuance and persistence of this idea. At night, does not the dream deliver us from the laws of weight? Does it not give us the faculty of going, of coming, and of flying to the summit of things before unattainable, or of losing ourselves in the infinite hights? This general and oft-repeated dream, which expresses the secret desire of humanity, has it not something prophetic? Perhaps modern skepticism treats too lightly the meaning of these flights of the soul, temporarily freed from the more earthly control of reason and sense. With the astonishing simplicity of the operations of nature, a miracle took place in the fireplace, without attracting attention, every time that the smoke carried out of the chimney a piece of burnt paper. It required six thousand years to take a hint from this simple fact. The balloon floats in the air as oil floats upon wine, as cork upon water, as the cannon-ball upon mercury, by relations of weight and of lightness, one single law everywhere. But unfortunately, the balloon has neither wings, nor tail, nor neck, nor feet, nothing which can guide it; it is a vessel without sail or helm, a fish without fins, a bird without feathers; it floats, that is all; it is immense, and it is nothing. Why do not all the inventors, wise mechanicians, chemists, poets, occupy themselves by endeavoring to solve the problem of the guiding of balloons? Is it not shameful for man to have found the hippogriff which transports him to the celestial regions, and not to know how to guide it; while every day the birds go and come on airy wings, as if to instruct and defy us? The air, although a fluid, offers points of propulsion, since the condor, or the sparrow, mounts, descends, goes to the right and left, quickly or slowly, as he pleases; and why should not man be able to do the same? The time when he shall do this may be near. That will be a great day! Man will truly become master of his planet, and will have conquered his atmosphere! No more seas, no more rivers, no more mountains, no more valleys; that will be the true reign of liberty. Merely by this knowledge of the direction of balloons, the whole face of the world will change immediately. Other forms of government, other manners, a new style of architecture, a different system of fortification, will be needed; but then men will no longer make war. The custom-house and its taxes, and the stronghold, will disappear. Visit, if you can, with your gauge and your yardstick, balloons ten thousand feet in the air; of what use will be moats, ditches, portcullis and bridges, against an aerial army? What a fine spectacle it will be to see crossing one another in the air, at different hights, these swarms of balloons, painted with brilliant colors, guided during the day by the light, and at night with their lanterns, having the appearance of stars traversing the firmament! The ascension of the highest mountains will then be but child’s play. We shall penetrate into China, and go to Timbuctoo as one goes to St. Cloud; the deserts of Africa, of Asia and of America, will be forced to deliver up their secrets. We shall go even to the border of the atmosphere which surrounds us. We shall visit creation in every nook and recess. There will be servant balloons and master balloons; and in speaking of the luxury or extravagance of a person, it will be said, ‘He is rich; he has a balloon of thirty-four thousand cubic feet of gas;’ which will be equivalent to saying that he has a coach and four. And when this dream is realized, the execution of another, already dreamed by the poets, will be attempted. Man, arrived at the outward limits of his atmosphere, will wish to leave his planet; and will seriously attempt to reach the moon! And who shall say that at some time he shall not do it?”
EARLY NAVIGATION.
THE PROGRESS OF NAVIGATION.
One of the wonders of the world, is to be found in tracing the progress of navigation, from its small beginning, up to its present wonderful condition and results. There is an old legend, that, ages ago, a piece of reed floating on the water, first suggested the idea of navigation. And if so, the next step might have been, the use of logs for crossing rivers; then, the use of rafts; then, of canoes of hollowed logs; and then, of artificial boats, of various forms and materials, some of wood, some of skins, and some of bark. The earliest navigators on an extended scale were the Phœnicians, who made voyages through the Mediterranean, and along the northern coasts of Europe, and down the Red sea, as early as the days of Solomon, one thousand years before the Christian era. Their earliest attempts to navigate the waters, might perhaps be represented in the following cut, in which several forms of boats may be seen. Their larger and later vessels were somewhat of the shape of those now in use, though more perhaps of the Dutch, than of the English or American form. The sails of these vessels are said to have been suggested by the little sea animal, called the nautilus. The vessels themselves had no decks, and were not over twenty or thirty tuns’ burden. They had masts and rudders, and the prow was decorated with paint and gilding, and represented the image of some god. The ships of the Greeks and Romans, in after times, were larger, but they were uncouth structures, managed with difficulty, and liable to numerous accidents and hindrances. The war ships were nothing but large row-boats. These were very long and narrow, like canoes. The cable and anchor were later inventions. The latter at first was a large stone. In the days of the Roman emperors, vessels of immense size were occasionally built, but they were of little use, except for the transportation of heavy objects. In the middle ages, navigation made little progress; but about the close of the fifteenth century, its strides were prodigious. The mariner’s compass had been invented, and the sailor had now a guide over the mysterious ocean. Hence America was discovered in 1492, though the three ships of Columbus were not so large as our common schooners, and had no proper decks; so that it seems a wonder to us, that with these comparatively small vessels he should have ventured so far on the mighty deep. From his day to the present, there has been a steady advance in ship-building. The forms of vessels have been improved; their size greatly increased; and their number multiplied, a thousand fold; so that if the great navigator were now again to visit the earth, he would be astonished at the huge structures built as packet and freight ships for crossing the ocean. For a long time, the English took the lead in ship-building; but it is now admitted that the fastest vessels in the world, as well as those of most graceful appearance, are those built in the United States. In the cut above, is a view of one of our large packet-ships, just ready to be launched from the stocks. Vessels of this class may vary from fifteen hundred to two thousand tuns’ burden; their main cabins are beautifully furnished with mahogany and gilded carvings; and no expense is spared that may contribute to their elegance, or the comfort of passengers.
THE LAUNCH OF A PACKET-SHIP.