The earliest recorded ascent of a balloon is credited to the Chinese, on the occasion of the coronation of the Emperor Fo-Kien at Pekin in the year 1306. If this may be called historical, it gives evidence also that it speedily became a lost art. The next really historic record belongs in the latter part of the seventeenth century, when Cyrano de Bergerac attempted to fly with the aid of bags of air attached to his person, expecting them to be so expanded by the heat of the sun as to rise with sufficient force to lift him. He did not succeed, but his idea is plainly the forerunner of the hot-air balloon.
In the same century Francisco de Lana, who was clearly a man of much intelligence and keen reasoning ability, having determined by experiment that the atmosphere had weight, decided that he would be able to rise into the air in a ship lifted by four metal spheres 20 feet in diameter from which the air had been exhausted. After several failures he abandoned his efforts upon the religious grounds that the Almighty doubtless did not approve such an overturning in the affairs of mankind as would follow the attainment of the art of flying.
In 1757, Galen, a French monk, published a book, “The Art of Navigating in the Air,” in which he advocated filling the body of the airship with air secured at a great height above the sea-level, where it was “a thousand times lighter than water.” He showed by mathematical computations that the upward impulse of this air would be sufficient to lift a heavy load. He planned in detail a great airship to carry 4,000,000 persons and several million packages of goods. Though it may have accomplished nothing more, this book is believed to have been the chief source of inspiration to the Montgolfiers.
The discovery of hydrogen by Cavendish in 1776 gave Dr. Black the opportunity of suggesting that it be used to inflate a large bag and so lift a heavy load into the air. Although he made no attempt to construct such an apparatus, he afterward claimed that through this suggestion he was entitled to be called the real inventor of the balloon.
This is the meagre historical record preceding the achievements of the brothers Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, which marked distinctly the beginning of practical aeronautics. Both of these men were highly educated, and they were experienced workers in their father’s paper factory. Joseph had made some parachute drops from the roof of his house as early as 1771.
After many experiments with steam, smoke, and hydrogen gas, with which they tried ineffectually to inflate large paper bags, they finally succeeded with heated air, and on June 5, 1783, they sent up a great paper hot-air balloon, 35 feet in diameter. It rose to a height of 1,000 feet, but soon came to earth again upon cooling. It appears that the Montgolfiers were wholly ignorant of the fact that it was the rarefying of the air by heating that caused their balloon to rise, and they made no attempt to keep it hot while the balloon was in the air.
An early Montgolfier balloon.
About the same time the French scientist, M. Charles, decided that hydrogen gas would be better than hot air to inflate balloons. Finding that this gas passed readily through paper, he used silk coated with a varnish made by dissolving rubber. His balloon was 13 feet in diameter, and weighed about 20 pounds. It was sent up from the Champ de Mars on August 29, 1783, amidst the booming of cannon, in the presence of 300,000 spectators who assembled despite a heavy rain. It rose swiftly, disappearing among the clouds, and soon burst from the expansion of the gas in the higher and rarer atmosphere—no allowance having been made for this unforeseen result. It fell in a rural region near Paris, where it was totally destroyed by the inhabitants, who believed it to be some hideous form of the devil.
The Montgolfiers had already come to Paris, and had constructed a balloon of linen and paper. Before they had opportunity of sending it up it was ruined by a rainstorm with a high wind. They immediately built another of waterproof linen which made a successful ascension on September 19, 1783, taking as passengers a sheep, a cock, and a duck. The balloon came safely to earth after being up eight minutes—falling in consequence of a leak in the air-bag near the top. The passengers were examined with great interest. The sheep and the duck seemed in the same excellent condition as when they went up, but the cock was evidently ailing. A consultation of scientists was held and it was the consensus of opinion that the fowl could not endure breathing the rarer air of the high altitude. At this juncture some one discovered that the cock had been trodden upon by the sheep, and the consultation closed abruptly.