How far it is possible to employ a balloon for purposes of exploration in quarters which are naturally inaccessible, or at any rate difficult of approach, must be a question dependent in no small degree upon the power of replenishing the machine with gas or heated air. It would, doubtless, be a fine thing if men could thus sail over all the obstructions which fence in the two poles, and pry into the Antarctic continent, or solve the problem of a hidden Arctic sea. Many years ago Mr. Hampton designed, and we believe completed, a big Montgolfier, which was to be employed in the search after Sir John Franklin. The machine was to be inflated by means of hot air produced by the agency of a great stove; but, if the necessity for a supply of the ordinary gas was thus avoided, the demand for fuel in regions where neither timber nor coal could be had (blubber, indeed, might perhaps have been procured), must have proved an insuperable difficulty, and the enterprise would probably have terminated in leaving the aeronauts stranded on some icy waste, without any better means of return than were possessed by the poor lost ones themselves.
Let us not part from this subject, however, without informing the reader that if M. Flammarion's views are correct, it is the most important topic under the sun. 'For,' says he, with the look of a prophet and the tone of a poet, 'when the conquest of the air shall have been achieved, universal fraternity will be established upon the earth, everlasting peace will descend to us from heaven, and the last links which divide men and nations will be severed.' Without laying any stress upon the oracular form of this prediction—and the indefinite 'when' may conceal some sly reference to the Greek Kalends—we regret to say that we cannot join in his jubilant conclusion. Our firm persuasion is, that in the present state of affairs, seeing that so large a portion of the world's revenue is squandered upon fighting purposes, one of the first steps which would be taken in case the 'conquest of the air' were perfected to-morrow, would be to fit out a fleet of war-balloons, to raise a standing army of aeronauts, to add a new and afflictive department to our annual estimates, and to encourage the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make another assault upon the match-sellers, and probably to double our income-tax without compunction.
Art. III.—Early Sufferings of the Free Church of Scotland.
(1.) Illustrations of the Principles of Toleration in Scotland. Edinburgh. 1846.
(2.) The Headship of Christ and the Rights of the Christian People. By the late Hugh Miller. Nimmo, Edinburgh.
(3.) The Cruise of the Betsy. By Hugh Miller. Nimmo.
(4.) Evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons on the Refusal of Sites for Churches in Scotland, 1847.
(5.) Statement on the Law of Church Patronage, prepared by a Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in compliance with a suggestion of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. William Blackwood and Sons. 1870.
We were enabled to present our readers last year with what we believe to be the only full sketch in existence, drawn from authentic and official documents, of the rise and progress during a quarter of a century, of the Free Church of Scotland. From the figures there quoted it was made clear that at the very time when the Archbishop of Canterbury was proclaiming that this voluntary church was 'a failure' financially, its yearly income, steadily increasing from £275,000 of its earliest lustrum, had at last reached the highest point of £400,000; and that just when his Grace was asserting that 'whereas for a time it went forth triumphantly, now the ministers in all remote places are utterly destitute,' these remote ministers had, for the first time (although their number was doubled) attained the minimum stipend proposed by Dr. Chalmers of £150 each. The organization and machinery by which such a striking success has been achieved, as well as the principles which gave the original impulse to the body, were worthy of careful statement and study. Yet while devoting exclusive attention to these, we became gradually conscious that we were treading coldly upon the ashes of what history will describe as a marvellous outburst of self-sacrifice. The pathos and the suffering of that sad but noble year of 1843 have never yet been brought before English readers, but there is not so much heroism among us that we can afford to lose from the annals of this easy-going modern time so startling a narrative.