BALLOON-TRAVELLING.
Aërial navigation, the faculty of locomotion through the air, the power of soaring bird-like into the azure fields of space, has always been tantalisingly seductive to the human imagination. So engrossing is the theme, that although the subject has already been discussed from a scientific point of view in these pages, a few additional words about its more popular aspects may not be found uninteresting to our readers.
Great, and, as it has proved, baseless anticipations were evoked by the advent of the first balloon. Aërostation was to disclose the secrets of the atmospheric world, and by enabling men to predict rains and droughts, secure by the proper cultivation of the soil abundant and excellent harvests. The unmanageable nature of the new invention was not taken into account at all, nor the fact, that although you might ascend into the air from any point you chose, no one could predict where or how you would descend. This charming uncertainty still attends aërial voyages; no means have yet been discovered of guiding the balloon in a horizontal direction; and it is always so much at the mercy of currents of air, that the course it will follow is a matter of chance, and not an affair of the aëronaut’s will or choice.
Attempts have been made to press this unmanageable machine into the service of science, and with some success, although what has yet been done is little more than a suggestion of discoveries which may at some future time be practicable by its aid.
In 1862 Mr Glaisher, author of a history of Travels in the Air, made a series of ascents from Wolverhampton, in order to verify a number of scientific observations; the results of which are contained in the annals of the British Association. A new balloon was provided for him, which was not made of silk, but of American cloth, a stronger and more serviceable material, and in this aërial machine he encountered sundry mishaps and misadventures, on two occasions narrowly escaping with his life.
Its very danger lends to balloon-travelling a sense of conscious adventure, of thrilling excitement, peculiarly its own. Added to this, the cloud-scenery through which the aëronaut glides is not only novel, but is often, especially at sunrise and sunset, most gorgeously beautiful; while the earth beneath, which seems to have motion transferred to it, presents as it hurries past, a charming and varied panorama. Woods and rivers, hamlets and towns, hills and valleys, and wide-spreading downs, succeed each other in rapid succession. From the immense height, all idea of the comparative altitude of objects is lost; great cities appear like small models of towns, and the biggest man-of-war looks like a boy’s toy ship. Morning up in cloudland is a gloriously radiant spectacle. The balloon floats out of darkness into a world of shadowy mountain ranges, colourless and unsubstantial at first, but borrowing from the rising sun the softest, tenderest hues of roseate pink and warmest crimson, glowing and blending and fading away at last into a mellow flood of amber gold.
In France, for some time after their invention, balloons were quite the rage, the first made for scientific purposes being that of July 1803, and which was followed by several others having for their object the solution of many physical problems, not a few of which remain problems still. In 1850 two ascents were made for the purpose of investigating certain atmospheric phenomena. One especially of these aërial voyages was in the last degree unfortunate. Scarcely had the two philosophers MM. Barral and Bixio taken their seats, than they made the unpleasant discovery that their balloon was not in good working order; and while they were hesitating about what should be done in the circumstances, a violent gust of wind settled the question for them, and the balloon, blown from the earth, shot into the air with the velocity of an arrow. Becoming rapidly inflated, the machine then bulged out at top and bottom, covering the car like a hood, and enveloping the unfortunate aëronauts in total darkness. ‘Their position was most critical; and when one of them endeavoured to secure the valve-rope, a rent was made in the lower part of the balloon, and the hydrogen gas with which it was inflated escaping close to their faces suffocated both of them, causing a momentary exhaustion, followed by nausea and violent vomiting.’
In this helpless condition they discovered that they were descending rapidly; and on groping about for the cause they found that the balloon was split open in the middle, and that there was a rent in it two yards long. This was a cruel predicament in which to find themselves thirty thousand feet up in the air, and very naturally they abandoned all hope of life, although, like wise men, they did all in their power to preserve it. To lessen the downward velocity of the balloon they threw overboard all their ballast, then article after article of their raiment even to their fur coats, preserving only their instruments, with which they at last descended in safety in a vineyard near Lagny.
The motion in a balloon is scarcely perceptible. You are not conscious of rising; but the earth appears to recede from you, and to advance to meet you during a descent. In the higher regions of the air, the intense solitude of the cloud-scape has something in it awful and oppressive, as if the world were left behind for ever, and the aëronaut were about to launch chance-driven into the vast infinitude of shadowland. Amid these altitudes, if any sound is made by the aëronaut, it is echoed back in ghostly tones by the vast envelope of the balloon, which as it floats casts a shadow sometimes black and sometimes white; but which is usually surrounded by an aureole or halo more or less distinctly marked.