Part 4 (1/2)
Despite all efforts, however, it was soon evident that the cu carried up quite so high as the inventor desired Mr cocking had stipulated for an elevation of 7,000 feet, and, as things were, only 5,000 feet could be reached, at any rate, before darkness set in This fact was co, who pro to knohereabouts he was, to which query Mr Spencer replied that they were on a level with Greenwich The brief colloquy that ensued is thus given by Mr Green:--
”I asked him if he felt quite comfortable, and if the practical trial bore out his calculation Mr cocking replied, 'Yes, I never felt hted in , 'Well, now I think I shall leave you' I answered, 'I wish you a very ”Good Night!”
and a safe descent if you are determined tohim to retreat up into the balloon if he desired) Mr cocking's only reply was, 'Good-night, Spencer; Good-night, Green!' Mr cocking then pulled the rope that was to liberate himself, but too feebly, and a moment afterwards more violently, and in an instant the balloon shot upwards with the velocity of a sky rocket The effect upon us at this moment was almost beyond description The immense machine which suspended us between heaven and earth, whilst it appeared to be forced upwards with terrific violence and rapidity through unknown and untravelled regions as of a fearful hurricane, rolled about as though revelling in a freedoled, but of which until that th, as if soradually assu its ith extraordinary speed towards a given object During this frightful operation the gas was rushi+ng in torrents from the upper and lower valve, but more particularly froh which ere forcing our progress pressed so heavily on the valve at the top of the balloon as to admit of but a comparatively small escape by this aperture At this juncture, had it not been for the application to our , hich we had furnished ourselves previous to starting, we must within a minute have been suffocated, and so, but by differentwas forallons of at was inflated with the assistance of a pair of belloith fifty gallons of air, so allowing for any expansion which ions Into the end of this bag were introduced two flexible tubes, and theup in the manner just described, Mr Spencer, as well as myself, placed either of them in our mouths By this simple contrivance we preserved ourselves from instantaneous suffocation, a result which as hich the car was enveloped The gas, notwithstanding all our precautions, from the violence of its operation on the huht, and ere both, as far as our visionary poere concerned, in a state of total darkness for four or five minutes”
Messrs Green and Spencer eventually reached earth in safety near Maidstone, knowing nothing of the fate of their late coh a Mr R Underwood, as on horseback near Blackheath and watching the aeronauts at the moment when the parachute was separated from the balloon He noticed that the former descended with the ut fearfully from side to side, until the basket and its occupant, actually parting froh several hundred feet and were dashed to pieces
It would appear that the liberation of the parachute from below the balloon had been carried out without hitch; indeed, all so far had worked well, and the wind at the tientle breeze The misadventure, therefore, must be entirely attributed to the faulty manner in which the parachute was constructed There could, of course, be only one issue to the sheer drop fro's fate, but the very interesting question will have to be discussed as to the chances in favour of the aeronaut ithin his wicker car, while still duly attached to the balloon, may meet with a precipitate descent
We may here fitly mention an early perilous experience of Mr Green, due simply to the malice of someone never discovered It appears that while Green's balloon, previous to an ascent, was on the ground, the cords attaching the car had been partly severed in such a way as to escape detection So that as soon as the balloon rose the car co away, and its occupants, Mr Green and Mr Griffiths, had to clutch at the ring, to which with difficulty they continued to cling
Meanwhile, the car re suspended by one cord only, the balloon was caused to hang aith the result that its upper netting began giving way, allowing the balloon proper gradually to escape through the bursting ers with terrible disaster The disaster, in fact, actually came to pass ere the party coh the opening in the net-ith a tre to the rest of the gear, falling through a height said to be near a hundred feet Both, though only with much time and difficulty, recovered froic adventure connected with Mr
cocking's parachute trial, we find Charles Green giving his views as to the practicability of carrying out a ballooning enterprise which should far excel all others that had hitherto been atte of the Atlantic froland There is no shadow of doubt that the adventurous aeronaut holly in earnest in the readiness he expressed to e; and he discusses the possibilities with singular clearness and candour He maintains that the actual difficulties resolve themselves into two only: first, the maintenance of the balloon in the sky for the requisite period of time; and, secondly, the adequate control of its direction in space With respect to the first difficulty, he points out the fact to which we have already referred, namely, that it is impossible to avoid the fluctuations of level in a balloon's course, ”by which it constantly becoas by expansion, and consequent loss of ballast, to furnish an equivalent di his own balloon of 80,000 cubic feet by way of example, he shows that this, fully inflated on the earth, would lose 8,000 cubic feet of gas by expansion in ascending only 3,000 feet Moreover, the approach of night or passage through cloud or falling rain would occasion chilling of the gas or accu the loss of ballast, the store of which is always the true measure of the balloon's life
To couinely relies on his favourite device of a trail or guide rope, whose function, being that of relieving the balloon of a ht as it approaches the earth, could, he supposed, be made to act yetnot less than 2,000 feet, it should have attached at its lower end at certain intervals a nus, the apertures of which should be contrived to ads were to be conical floats, to support any length of the rope that ht descend on the sea Now, should the balloon co, it would simply deposit a certain portion of rope on the water until it regained equilibriureat decrease of altitude, and would thus continue its course until alteration of conditions should cause it to recoht of water now collected in the bags would play its part in preventing the balloon fro up into space With such a contrivance Green allowed hiine that he could keep a properly made balloon at practically the same altitude for a period of threea due course was next discussed, and somewhat speedily disposed of Here Green relied on the results of his own observation, gathered during 275 ascents, and stated his conviction that there prevails a uniformity of upper wind currents that would enable him to carry out his bold projects successfully His contention is best given in his oords:
”Under whatever circumstances,” he says, ”I made my ascent, however contrary the direction of the winds below, I unifor occasionally, but alithin 10,000 feet of the earth, a current from the west or rather from the north of west, invariably travailed, nor do I recollect a single instance in which a different result ensued” Green's complete scheme is now sufficiently evident He was to cross the Atlantic practically by the sole assistance of upper currents and his guide rope, but on this latter expedient, should adverse conditions prevail, he yet further relied, for he conceived that the rope could have attached to its floating end a water drag, which would hold the balloon in check until favouring gales returned
Funds, apparently, were not forthco his boldwith so much zeal to his project that, five years later, he ain unsuccessfully, a second proposal to cross the Atlantic by balloon He still continued toascents, and one of a specially sensational nature ard the exploits of other aeronauts
It was in 1841 on the occasion of a fete at Cre his famous Nassau balloon, ascended with a Mr Macdonnell
The as bloith such extreme violence that Rainham, in Essex, about twenty miles distant, was reached in littlethe earth, the grapnel, finding good hold, gave a wrench to the balloon that broke the ring and jerked the car co precipitation by holding hard to the ropes A terrific steeplechase ensued, in which the travellers were dragged through stout fencing and other obstacles till the balloon, fairly eas, finally came to rest, but not until some severe injuries had been received
CHAPTER VIII JOHN WISE--THE AMERICAN AERONAUT
By this period the do pursued in a fresh part of the world England and her Continental neighbours had vied with each in adding to the roll of conquests, and it could hardly other be supposed that An which was now being revived with so y in the skies
The American champion who stepped foras Mr John Wise, of Lancaster, Pa, whose career, co in the year 1835, weof any kind had up to that time been made in all America There is a record that in December, 1783, Messrs Rittenhouse and Hopkins, Members of the Philosophical Academy of Philadelphia, instituted experie to which forty-seven se craft a carpenter, by name Wilcox, was induced to ascend, which, it is said, he did successfully, re hiain by opening several of his balloons This brought about an aard descent, attended, however, by no more serious accident than a dislocated wrist Mr Wise, on the other hand, states that Blanchard had won the distinction ofthe first ascent in the New World in 1793 in Philadelphia on which occasion Washi+ngton was a spectator; and a few years afterwards other Frenchave exhibitions, which, however, led to no real development of the new art on this, the further side of the Atlantic Thus the endeavours we are about to describe were those of an independent and, at the sahly, practical experimentalist, and on this account have a special value of their own
The records that Wise has left of his investigations begin at the earliest stage, and possess the charm of an obvious and somewhat quaint reality They commence with certain crude calculations which would seem to place no limit to the capabilities of a balloon Thus, he points out that one of ”the very moderate size of 400 feet diameter” would convey 13,000 men ”No wonder, then,” he continues, ”the citizens of London beca the French War, when theytowards the Metropolis for Napoleon's ar down upon the to practical measures, Wise's first care was to procure some proper material of which to build an experimental balloon of sufficient size to lift and convey hias-tight by coats of suitable varnish, the preparation of which became with him, as, indeed, it remains to this day, a problem of chief i out that the varnish of a balloon must not only be sufficiently elastic not to crack or scale off with folding or unavoidable rough usage, but it must also be of a nature to resist the common tendency of such substances to become adherent or ”tacky” Wise determined on bird lime thinned with linseed oil and ordinary driers
With this preparation he coated hisup, and having procured a net, of which he speaks with pride, and a priht himself sufficiently equipped to ereater practical difficulty than the mere en of so small a balloon as his was heno less than fifteen casks of 130 gallons capacity each He also duly secured a suitable filling ground at the corner of Ninth and Green Streets, Philadelphia, but he made a miscalculation as to the time the inflation would demand, and this led to unforeseen complications, for as yet he knew not the way of a crohich cos in readiness, and prudently waiting for fair weather, he erand experi 4 pm as the hour of departure But by that ti only proceeded for three hours, the balloon was but half full, and then the populace began to behave as in such circumstances they alill
They were incredulous, and presently grew troubleso of the car was proceeded with as though all ell For all was not well, and when the aeronaut stepped into his car with only fifteen pounds of sand and a few instru Still, he had friends around who er to help But these si hi the ”lift” of his all-too-elobe Moreover, some would endeavour to throw the machine upward, while others as strenuously strove to keep it down, and at last the for fairly cast into the air, grazed a neighbouring chied into an adjacent plot, not, however, before the distracted traveller had flung away all his little stock of sand There noas brief opportunity for free action, and to the first bystander who ca the car in check To the next he handed out his instruet away; but his chance had not yet co hiood-natured buthis voice with excited shouting Soave his persecutors to understand that he wished to speak, and then he begged theive hi, and leaving only onethe car It was a moment of suspense, for Wise calculated that he had only parted with sohteen pounds since his first ineffectual start froh, and in another reat, as has been already shewn, is often the effect of parting with the last few pounds of dead weight in a well-balanced balloon
Such was the first ”send off” of the future great balloonist, destined to become the pioneer in aeronautics on the far side of the Atlantic
The balloon ascended to upwards of a hest point it reached a conflict of currents, causing eddies froht, effected byaway the wreaths of flowers that were tied about his car
A further small substitute for ballast he extemporised in the metal tube inserted in the neck of his fabric, and this he cast out when over the breadth of the Delaware, and he describes it as falling with a rustling sound, and striking the water with a splash plainly heard at more than a mile in the sky After an hour and a quarter the balloon spontaneously and steadily settled to earth
An ascent carried out later in the sa aeronaut an all-i the saot safely and satisfactorily away from his station in the town of Lebanon, Pa, and soon found hiate keeper in banter called up to him for his due To this summons Wise, with heedless alacrity, responded in aof sand to represent his toll, and, though he estireatly accelerated his ascent that he shortly found hireater altitude than he ever after attained