Mr. Andrée is a genuine offspring of the famous sea-kings. He is very tall, powerfully built, with a prominent forehead, blue eyes, and a forest of fair early hair, and is endowed with great muscular strength. As for his mental capacities, he is a talented writer and speaker, and can converse in German and English as fluently as in his native tongue, while he speaks French well enough to make himself easily understood by an audience. Mr. Andrée's practical education has not been neglected, and he knows how to use a hammer, a file, or a chisel as well as any trained workman. On account of his manual acquirements he was selected by the chief of the exploring party to keep the registering apparatus in order, a difficult and painful operation during the terrific cold of the dreary polar nights.
Before he had attained his thirtieth year Mr. Andrée received the appointment of chief engineer of the Swedish Patent-Office. It is probable that he would have devoted the whole of his life to the performance of these attractive official duties had he not felt, during his wintering in the northern regions, the irresistible spell of a more risky and enticing vocation. When he visited me in Paris last summer on his way to the International Geographical Congress, held in London, he confessed that it was in the presence of those grand and impressive scenes he had resolved to win for his native country the fame of having reached the North Pole first.
It was in 1889 that Mr. Andrée decided to make balloon ascensions. Receiving aid from a Swedish scientific fund and from the Stockholm Academy of Sciences, he had the Swea built in Paris, under the supervision of the Swedish Minister. (Swea is the poetic name for Sweden.) This balloon measured 30,000 cubic feet. Mr. Andrée's first ascension took place from Stockholm on July 15, 1893. He was quite alone in the car, and this enabled him to reach an altitude of 11,000 feet, after having passed successively through two layers of clouds, accurately ascertained the direction of the wind prevailing at several levels, and studied other important scientific matters, which have proved valuable to students in all branches of science the world over. He published a graphic account of his first experiences in the Aftonbladet, one of the most influential papers in Sweden, to which he had previously been a popular contributor. In this account he described his sensations as soon as he had lost sight of land, and also when he perceived that he would be immersed in the sea unless he found a serviceable breeze that would carry him towards land. Fortunately the breeze came in time.
ANDRÉE'S GUIDING SAIL.
On October 19th of the same year Mr. Andrée made another ascension, in the course of which almost any inexperienced aeronaut would have been lost. As soon as he had passed through a layer of clouds, which up to that moment had entirely concealed the earth from view, he saw that he was passing at an immense distance from land over the very centre of the Baltic. With a calm hand he gently lowered his guide-rope, and observed that the friction on the water was greatly diminishing the velocity with which the wind was carrying the Swea away from the sea-ports, where he could reasonably expect to be rescued by casual ships. Then he tried to reduce the velocity even more by attaching two sacks of ballast to the end of his guide-rope. This simple combination, conceived under the pressure of a great danger, led him to a discovery. He found that he could make the balloon turn slightly to the right or left by using a sail when lowering the guide-rope, not only on sea, but on a vast expanse of land. Mr. Andrée tried this important experiment during an ascension made on July 14, 1894, at Gottenburg. The change of course that he obtained with a moderate-sized sail and a heavy guide-rope was estimated from ten to thirty degrees, not only as shown by his compass, but also according to the testimony of competent persons who had witnessed this extraordinary ascension, when, for the first time, a man had made a balloon sail on the wind.
IN THE CAR OF THE SWEA.
An eventful ending was reserved for this ascension, during which the young Swedish engineer had so cleverly combined the force of the wind with the friction it generates, and utilized both for varying at will the direction of the balloon to the right or left from the air current. The sun was fast declining when Mr. Andrée conceived for the first time this great idea, which may prove so useful for reaching the North Pole. He soon observed a small island straight ahead in the direction he was then following, and at once threw out a sack of ballast. His guide-rope was freed from the waves in an instant, and the Swea darted forward at a rapid rate for the desired land. Ten minutes had not elapsed when Mr. Andrée saw, with a feeling of deep satisfaction and even rapture, the shore lying about a hundred yards directly under his feet. Then he threw his whole weight on his valve-rope, hundreds of cubic feet of gas instantly escaped, the Swea struck land with a shock, and the car was overturned. Our aeronaut, to his great satisfaction, was thrown, at full length on the ground.
Being young in the art of balloon management, Mr. Andrée could not imagine how quickly events happen in aerial navigation. Before he could grasp a rope the Swea had vanished in the air, and he was left alone on the island, without any food or covering, exposed to the cold of those latitudes during a long and dismal October night. Naturally enough, he found in his pocket a box of matches, for the manufacture of these useful objects is a specialty in his native country. He gathered a few dry weeds and dead shrubs and lighted a fire. While warming his tired and hungry body he had plenty of time to meditate over the hardships of his unenviable position. The island, which seemed allotted to him by fate, was not two furlongs long and one wide, and had no water. It was one of the thousand rocky and barren islets composing the Finnish archipelago, and there was but slight possibility that any vessel sent from Sweden could discover his retreat in time to save him from the most terrible of fates, death from hunger and thirst.