Part 3 (2/2)

At a quarter past four they sighted the sea, and here, the air beginning to grow chill, the balloon dropped earthward, and for soes, scattering the rooks, and keeping up a running conversation the while with labourers and passers below In this there was exercise of perfectly proper aerial seamanshi+p, such as moreover presently led to an exhibition of true science To save ballast is, with a balloon, to prolong life, and thislohich doubtless was Green's present intention But soon his trained eye saw that the ground current which now carried the to the northward, and so far out of their course that they would soon make the North Foreland, and so be carried out over the North Sea far from their desired direction

Thereupon Green attempted to put in practice his theory, already spoken of, of steering by upper currents, and the event proved his judg,” wrote Mr Monck Mason, ”could exceed the beauty of theher due course, and, in a ers almost vertically over the castle of Dover in the exact line for crossing the straits between that town and Calais”

So far all ell, and success had been extraordinary; but from this rave trouble of uncertainty Light was failing, the sea was before them, and--what else thenceforth? 448 p waves was seen directly below thean rapidly to fade out from their view But, ahead, the obscurity was yet more intense, for clouds, banked up like a solid wall, crowned along its frowning heights, with ”parapets and turrets and batteries and bastions,” and, plunging into this opposing barrier, they were quickly buried in blackness, losing at the same time over the sea all sound from earth soever So for a short hour's space, when the sound of waves once again broke in upon the fro merely) they found thehted town of Calais

Seeing this, the travellers atteht, which was directly followed by the beating of drums from below

It adds a touch of reality, as well as cheerfulness, to the narrative to read that at this period of their long journey the travellers apply themselves to a fair, square meal, the first for twelve hours, despite the day's excite the stores of the balloon of wine bottles and spirit flasks, but there is norequisitioned at this period The demand seems rather to have been for coffee--coffee hot; and this by a novel device was soon prepared It goes without saying that a fire or flame of any kind, except with special precautions, is inad heat, sufficient for the present purpose, was supplied fro placed in a suitably contrived vessel and slaked quickly, procured the desired beverage

This ed in seems to have been heartily and happily enjoyed; and from this point, for a while, the narrative becolooarded the scattered fires of a watchful population, with here and there the lights of larger towns, and the conteot romantic reveries ”Were they not aht, unknown and unnoticed, secretly and silently reviewing kingdo cities all clothed in the darkcity of Liege, with the lurid lights of extensive outlying iron works, and this was the last visible sign they caught of earth that night; save, at least, when occasional gli momentarily and di, they arded as aoverboard of their cherished coffee-boiling apparatus With its loss their store of lime became useless, save as ballast, and for this it was forthwith utilised until nothing rearded as an objectionable encuet rid of, were it not for the risk involved in rudely dropping it to earth But the difficulty was met They possessed a suitable small parachute, and, attached to this, the barrel was allowed to float earthward

As hours advanced, the blackness of night increased, and their ie to anyone faht travel in the sky Mr Monck Mason co their way through an interminable mass of black marble” Then, presently, an unaccountable object puzzles and absorbs the attention of all the party for a long period They were gazing open-h apparently belonging to earth, was too long and regular for a river, and too broad for a canal or road, and it was only after s that they discovered they were si far out over the side

Somewhat later still, there was a ination It was half-past three in the , and the balloon, which, to escape frohtened, had now at high speed ht And then, aion, suddenly overhead ca of the silk, while the car jerked violently, as though suddenly detached fro to the belief that the balloon had suddenly exploded, and that they were falling headlong to earth

Their suspense, however, cannot have been long, and the incident was intelligible enough, being due to the sudden yielding of stiffened net and silk under rapid expansion caused by their speedy and lofty ascent

The chief incidents of the night were now over, until the dawn arrived and began to reveal a strange land, with large tracts of snow, giving place, as the light strengthened, to vast forests To their ested the plains of Poland, if not the steppes of Russia, and, fearing that the country further forward ht prove more inhospitable, they decided to come to earth as speedily as possible This, in spite of difficult landing, they effected about the hour that the waking population wereabroad, and then, and not till then, they learned the land of their haven--the heart of the Gerhteen hours from start to finish!+

CHAPTER VII CHARLES GREEN--FURTHER ADVENTURES

All history is liable to repeat itself, and that of aeronautics forms no exception to the rule The second year after the invention of the balloon the fa fro, and, in co the archives in the ducal palace of that town Fifty-one years passed by when, outside the sa, and with due cere is presently laid beside that of Blanchard in the same ducal palace The balloon of the ”Ie has just been recounted, will ever be known by the title of the Great Nassau Balloon, but the neighbourhood of its landing was that of the town of Weilburg, in the Duchy of Nassau, whither the party betook the ant hospitality and honour until business recalled Mr Hollond home

Green had now h he lived to make a thousand, it was impossible that he could ever eclipse this last record It is true that the sauidance, es, some of which it will be necessary to dwell on But, to preserve a better chronology, we ression, approach an event which fills a dark page in our annals; and, in so doing, we have to transfer our attention from the balloon itself to its accessory, the parachute

Twenty-three years before our present date, that is to say in 1814, Mr cocking delivered his views as to the proper form of the parachute before the Society of Arts, who, as a mark of approval, awarded hi never taken practical shape, and only existing, figuratively speaking, in the clouds, seemed unlikely to find its way there in reality until the success of the Nassau adventure stirred its inventor to strenuous efforts to give it an actual trial

Thus it came about that he obtained Mr Green's co-operation in the atteh this ended disastrously, for Mr

cocking, the great professional aeronaut can in no way soever be blaic event

The date of the trial was in July, 1837 Mr cocking's parachute was totally different in principle from that form which, as we have seen, had met with a fair measure of success at the hands of early experily denounced and condemned in the London Press by the critic e have recently so freely quoted, Mr Monck Mason

This able reasoner and aeronaut pointed out that the contrivance about to be tested ai two principal drawbacks which the parachute had up to that tith of time which elapses before it becomes sufficiently expanded, and (2) the oscillatory movement which accompanies the descent In this new endeavour the inventor caused his idly open, and to assume the shape of an inverted cone In other words, instead of its being like an umbrella opened, it rather rese, then, the shape and di's structure as a basis for ht, which for required strength he put at 500 lbs Mr Monck Mason estimated that the adventurer and hisa velocity of some twelve miles an hour In fact, his positive prediction was that one of two events must inevitably take place ”Either the parachute would coround with a force incompatible with the safety of the individual, or should it be atteht to resist this conclusion, it ive way beneath the forces which will develop in the descent”

This elected, and the result of the terrible experiathered from two principal sources

First, that of a special reporter writing froives his own observations as made from the balloon in which he took the unfortunate man and his invention into the sky

The journalist, who first speaks of the enorathered to see the ascent, not only within Vauxhall Gardens, but on every vantage ground without, proceeds to tell of his intervieith Mr

cocking hier involved, rereatest peril, if any, would attend the balloon when suddenly relieved of his weight The proprietors of the Gardens, as the hour approached, did their best to dissuade the over-confident inventor, offering, themselves, to take the consequences of any public disappointain without avail, and so, towards 6 pm, Mr Green, accompanied by Mr Spencer, a solicitor of whom this history will have more to tell, entered the balloon, which was then let up about 40 feet that the parachute , casting aside his heavy coat and tossing off a glass of wine, entered his car and, a the National Anthem, the balloon and aeronauts above, and he hi below, athering dusk, out of view of the Gardens

The sequel should be gathered fro, 650 lbs of ballast had to be discarded to gain buoyancy sufficient to raise the ether with another 100 lbs, which was also required to be ejected owing to the cooling of the air, was passed out through a canvas tube leading doards through a hole in the parachute, an ingenious contrivance which would prevent the sand thrown out fro on the slender structure itself On quitting the earth, however, this latter set up such violent oscillations that the canvas tube was torn away, and then it became the troublesome task of the aeronauts to make up their ballast into little parcels, and, as occasion required, to throw these into space clear of the swinging parachute below