Umbrellas and Their History

by William Sangster

THE STORY OF THE PARACHUTE.

In giving an account of the Umbrella, it would not be right to omit mentioning another, and far from legitimate use in which it has been employed by notoriety-hunting artistes—we allude to the Parachute; and a short narration of its origin and progress may not be uninteresting to our readers.

The Parachute commonly in use is nothing more or less than a huge Umbrella, presenting a surface of sufficient dimension to experience from the air a resistance equal to the weight of descent, in moving through the fluid at a velocity not exceeding that of the shock which a person can sustain without danger or injury. It is made of silk or cotton. To the outer edge cords are fastened, of about the same length as the diameter of the machine (24 to 28 feet). A centre cord is attached to the apex and meets the cords from the margin, acting, in fact, as the stick of the Umbrella. The machine is thus kept expanded during descent. The car is fastened to the centre cord, and the whole attached to the balloon in such a manner that it may be readily and quickly detached, either by cutting a string, or pulling a trigger. Consequently, in the East, where the Umbrella has been from the earliest ages in familiar use, it appears to have been occasionally employed by vaulters, to enable them to jump safely from great heights. Father Loubère, in his curious account of Siam, relates, that a person famous in that country for his dexterity, used to divert the King and Court by the extraordinary leaps he took, having two Umbrellas with long slender handles, fastened to his girdle. In 1783 M. le Normand demonstrated the utility of the Parachute; by lifting himself down from the windows of a high house at Lyons. His idea was that it might be made a sort of fire-escape.

Blanchard was the first person who constructed a Parachute to act as a safety-guard to the aeronaut in case of any accident. During an excursion he made from Lille, in 1785, when he traversed, without stopping, a distance of 300 miles, he let down a Parachute with a basket fastened to it containing a dog. This he suffered to fall from a great height, and it reached the ground in safety.

The first Parachute descent from a balloon, however, was made by Jacques Garnerin, on the 22nd of October, 1797, in the Park of Monceau. De la Lande, the celebrated astronomer, has furnished a detailed and highly interesting account of this foolish experiment.

Garnerin resided in London during the short peace of 1802, and made two ascents with his balloon, in the second of which he let himself fall, at an amazing height, with a Parachute of 23 feet diameter. He started from an enclosure near North Audley Street, and descended after having been seven or eight minutes in the air. After cutting himself away, he floated over Marylebone and Somers Town, and fell in a field near St. Pancras Old Church. The oscillation was so great, that he was thrown out of the Parachute, and narrowly escaped death. He seemed a good deal frightened, and said that the peril was too great for endurance. One of the stays of the machine having given way, his danger was increased. The next person who tried this dangerous experiment was his niece, Eliza Garnerin, who descended several times in safety. Her Parachute had a large orifice in the top, in order to check the oscillation, and this appears to have been tolerably successful.

The next experimentalist was a person of the name of Cocking, who ended his days in a manner unworthy his talents, through a series of lamentable mistakes. His Parachute was constructed on the opposite principle, of a wedge-like form, and was intended to cleave through the air, instead of offering a resistance to it. It has not yet been proved that the principle was wrong, but the defect lay in the weakness of the materials employed in the formation of the Parachute.

On the 29th July, 1837, Mr. Cocking ascended in his new Parachute, attached to the Great Nassau Balloon. Mr. Cocking liberated himself from the balloon, the Parachute collapsed and fell, at a frightful rate, into a field near Lea, where poor Cocking was found with an awful wound on his right temple. He never spoke, but died almost immediately afterwards. It is much to be regretted that the descent was ever allowed to take place. The aeronauts themselves were for some time in a state of imminent peril. Immediately the Parachute was cut away, the balloon ascended with frightful velocity, owing to the ascending power it necessarily gained by being freed from a weight of nearly 500 pounds; and had it not been that its occupants applied their mouths to the air-bags previously provided, they must have been suffocated by the escaping gas. When the re-action took place, the balloon had lost its buoyancy, and fell, rather than descended, to the ground.

Mr. Hampton was the next person who attempted the experiment, and made three descents in a Parachute in succession without injury. Undeterred by the awful fate of his predecessor, this gentleman determined on making a Parachute descent which should prove the correctness of the theory, and the Montpellier Gardens at Cheltenham were selected as the scene of the exploit. Owing to the censure which was attached to the proprietors of the Vauxhall Gardens, for permitting docking's ascent, the owners of the Gardens at Cheltenham would not suffer the experiment to be made, and Mr. Hampton was obliged to have recourse to stratagem. As he was permitted to display his Parachute in the manner he intended to use it, the idea suddenly flashed across his mind that, he could carry out his long-nursed wishes. He suddenly cut the rope which kept him down, and went off, to the astonishment of the spectators: the last cheering sound that reached him being—"He will be killed to a dead certainty!"

After attaining an altitude of nearly two miles, Mr. Hampton proceeded to cut the rope that held him attached to the balloon. He paused for a second or two, as he remembered that it would soon be life or death with him, but at length drew his knife across the rope. The first feelings he experienced were both unpleasant and alarming; his eyes and the top of his head appeared to be forced upwards, but this passed off in a few seconds, and his feelings subsequently became pleasant, rather than disagreeable.