The balloon, likewise, was undiscouraged by the rain. Far above the clouds, where all was quiet sunshine, it journeyed peacefully along for fifteen miles, and descended in an open field.
The first two important chapters in the history of ballooning had now been written. Looking back, we are filled with gratitude to the French, whose courage, intelligence, and boundless enthusiasm made possible the conquest of the skies.
In other countries, of course, experiments were also in progress, though they lacked to a great extent the popular backing which helped the French efforts to bear such splendid results. In London, an Italian, Count Zambeccari, constructed a hydrogen balloon of oil silk, 10 feet in diameter and gilded, so that in the air it was dazzling to look upon. A few months after the three Frenchmen launched their hydrogen balloon in Paris, this gorgeous affair was sent up in London, in the presence of thousands of spectators. One month later still, the city of Philadelphia witnessed the first ascension of a hydrogen balloon in the New World. It carried a carpenter, one James Wilcox, as passenger.
“What is the use of a balloon, anyway?” Benjamin Franklin was asked when in Paris at the time of the Montgolfier experiments. “What is the use of a baby?” the great American replied, smiling. Perhaps he had some inkling of the remarkable future in store for the science of aeronautics, then in its infancy!
The first really notable ascent in a hydrogen balloon after the early efforts was that of a Frenchman, M. Blanchard, who rose from Paris in 1784, accompanied by a Benedictine monk. Before they had got far above the ground a slight accident brought the balloon bumping down again. The monk, thoroughly scared, abandoned his seat, and M. Blanchard ascended alone. This balloon was fitted out with wings and a rudder, by which it was hoped to steer its course, but they proved useless, and its occupant had to allow himself to drift with the wind. He reached a height of 9600 feet, remaining in the air an hour and a quarter. Suffering from the extreme cold which is experienced so high in the atmosphere, and almost overcome with numbness and drowsiness, he was at length compelled to descend.
In England at about this time, Vincent Lunardi accomplished a free ascent in the presence of the Prince of Wales. But again it was the Frenchman, M. Blanchard, who succeeded in making the first long balloon voyage. In January, 1785, he and Dr. Jeffries, an American physician, sailed across the English Channel from Dover. It was a perilous adventure, with the ever present danger of falling into the sea. Half way across they found themselves descending. Then began a constant throwing out of ballast in a race with time and the wind. When the bags of sand they had brought for the purpose were exhausted they hurled overboard bottles, boxes, pieces of rope, even their compass and the apparatus of the balloon. They were still falling when in the distance they caught sight of the dim outline of the French coast, and in a last effort to keep afloat they began dropping articles of clothing over the basket's edge. Suddenly, however, the balloon began to mount. They floated in over the land, coming to earth safely not far from Calais.
Pilâtre de Rozier at once set about to imitate M. Blanchard's feat, and to avoid the danger of falling he constructed a hydrogen balloon with a fire balloon below it, so that by heaping on fuel he could force it to rise whenever he noticed a tendency to fall. In this ingenious contrivance he attempted to fly the Channel. At a height of 3,000 feet both balloons were seen to burst into flames, and de Rozier fell. So the gallant Frenchman who was first to explore the skies came to his unfortunate end.
His death cast a gloom over the many aeronautic enthusiasts of France, England and America. But his splendid pioneer exploits had borne their fruit in a permanent and growing interest in the navigation of the air. The science of aeronautics marched on, and new and important schemes were invented for conquering the skies.