of Metz, who was appointed superintendent of the natural
history collections of Louis XVIII. On the 15th of October
1783, and following days, he made several ascents (generally
alone, but once with a companion, Girond de Villette) in a
captive balloon (i.e. one attached by ropes to the ground),
and demonstrated that there was no difficulty in taking up
fuel and feeding the fire, which was kindled in a brazier
suspended under the balloon, when in the air. The way being
thus prepared for aerial navigation, on the 21st of November
1783, Pilatre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes first
trusted themselves to a free fire-balloon. The experiment was
made from the Jardin du Chateau de la Muette, in the Bois de
Boulogne. A large fire-balloon was inflated at about two
o'clock, rose to a height of about 500 ft., and passing over
the Invalides and the Ecole Mililaire, descended beyond
the Boulevards, about 9000 yds. from the place of ascent,
having been between twenty and twenty-five minutes in the
air. Only ten days later, viz. on the 1st of December 1783,
Charles ascended from Paris in a balloon inflated with hydrogen
gas. The balloon, as in the case of the small one of the
same kind previously launched from the Champ de Mars, was
constructed by the brothers Robert, one of whom took part in the
ascent. It was 27 ft. in diameter, and the car was suspended
from a hoop surrounding the middle of the balloon, and fastened
to a net, which covered the upper hemisphere. The balloon
ascended very gently from the Tuileries at a quarter to two
o'clock, and after remaining for some time at an elevation
of about 2000 ft., it descended in about two hours at Nesle,
a small town about 27 m. from Paris, when Robert left the
car, and Charles made a, second ascent by himself. He had
intended to have replaced the weight of his companion by a
nearly equivalent quantity of ballast; but not having any
suitable means of obtaining such at the place of descent, and
it being just upon sunset, he gave the word to let go, and
the balloon being thus so greatly lightened, ascended very
rapidly to a height of about 2 m. After staying in the air
about half an hour, he descended 3 m. from the place of ascent,
although he believed the distance traversed, owing to different
currents, to have been about 9 m. In this second journey he
experienced a violent pain in his right ear and jaw, no doubt
produced by the rapidity of the ascent. He also witnessed
the phenomenon of a double sunset on the same day; for when he
ascended, the sun had set in the valleys, and as he mounted
he saw it rise again, and set a second time as he descended.
All the features of the modern balloon as now used are
more or less due to Charles, who invented the valve at
the top, suspended the car from a hoop, which was itself
attached to the balloon by netting, &c. With regard to his
use of hydrogen gas, there are anticipations that must be
noticed. As early as 1766 Henry Cavendish showed that this
gas was at least seven times lighter than ordinary air, and
it immediately occurred to Dr Joseph Black, of Edinburgh,
that a thin bag filled with hydrogen gas would rise to the
ceiling of a room. He provided, accordingly, the allantois
of a calf, with the view of showing at a public lecture such
a curious experiment; but for some reason it seems to have
failed, and Black did not repeat it, thus allowing a great
discovery, almost within his reach, to escape him. Several
years afterwards a similar idea occurred to Tiberius Cavallo,
who found that bladders, even when carefully scraped,
are too heavy, and that China paper is permeable to the
gas. But in 1782, the year before the invention of the
Montgolfiers, he succeeded in elevating soap-bubbles by
inflating them with hydrogen gas. Researches on the use of
gas for inflating balloons seem to have been carried on at
Philadelphia nearly simultaneously with the experiments of
the Montgolfiers; and when the news of the latter reached
America, D. Rittenhouse and F. Hopkinson, members of the
Philosophical Society at Philadelphia; constructed a machine
consisting of forty-seven small hydrogen gas-balloons attached
to a car or cage. After several preliminary experiments, in
which animals were let up to a certain height by a rope, a
carpenter, one James Wilcox, was induced to enter the car for
a small sum of money; the ropes were cut, and he remained in
the air about ten minutes, and only then effected his descent
by making incisions in a number of the balloons, through
fear of falling into the river, which he was approaching.
First Ascents in Great Britain.
Although the news of the Annonay and subsequent experiments
in France rapidly spread all over Europe, and formed a topic
of general discussion, still it was not till five months
after the Montgolfiers had first publicly sent a balloon
into the air that any aerostatic experiment was made in
England. In November 1783 Count Francesco Zambeccari
(1756-1812), an Italian who happened to be in London, made
a balloon of oil-silk, 10 ft. in diameter, and weighing 11
lb. It was publicly shown for several days, and on the 25th
it was three-quarters filled with hydrogen gas and launched
from the Artillery ground at one o'clock. It descended after
two hours and a half near Petworth, in Sussex, 48 m. from
London. This was the first balloon that ascended from English
ground. On the 22nd of February 1784 a hydrogen gas
balloon, 5 ft. in diameter, was let up from Sandwich, in
Kent, and descended at Warneton, in French Flanders, 75 m.
distant. This was the first balloon that crossed the
Channel. The first person who rose into the air from British
ground appears to have been J. Tytler1, who ascended from the
Comely Gardens, Edinburgh, on the 27th of August 1784, in a
fire-balloon of his own construction. He descended on the road
to Restalrig, about half a mile from the place where he rose.
But it was Vincent Lunardi who practically introduced
aerostation into Great Britain. Although Tytler had the
precedence by a few days still his attempts and partial
success were all but unknown; whereas Lunardi's experiments
excited an enormous amount of enthusiasm in London. He was
secretary to Prince Caramanico, the Neapolitan ambassador,
and his published letters to his guardian, the chevalier
Compagni, written while he was carrying out his project,
and detailing all the difficulties, &c., he met with as they
occurred, give an interesting and vivid account of the whole
matter. His balloon was 33 ft. in circumference (fig.4),
and was exposed to the public view at the Lyceum in the
Strand, where it was visited by upwards of 20,000 people. He
originally intended to ascend from Chelsea Hospital, but the
conduct of a crowd at a garden at Chelsea, which destroyed
the fire-balloon of a Frenchman named de Moret, who announced
an ascent on the 11th of August, but was unable to keep his
word, led to the withdrawal of the leave that had been
granted. Ultimately he was permitted to ascend from the Artillery
ground, and on the 15th of September 1784 the inflation with
hydrogen gas took place. It was intended that an English
gentleman named Biggin should accompany Lunardi; but the crowd
becoming impatient, the latter judged it prudent to ascend
with the balloon only partially full rather than risk a longer
delay, and accordingly Mr Biggin was obliged to leave the
car. Lunardi therefore ascended alone, in presence of the
prince of Wales and an enormous crowd of spectators. He
took up with him a pigeon, a dog and a cat, and the balloon
was provided with oars, by means of which he hoped to raise
or lower it at pleasure. Shortly after starting the pigeon
escaped, and one of the oars became broken and fell to the
ground. In about an hour and a half he descended at South
Mimms, in Hertfordshire, and landed the cat, which had suffered
from the cold: he then ascended again, and descended, after
the lapse of about three-quarters of an hour, at Standon, near
Ware, where he had great difficulty in inducing the peasants
to come to his assistance; but at length a young woman, taking
hold of one of the cords, urged the men to follow her example,
which they then did. The excitement caused by this ascent was
immense, and Lunardi at once became the star of the hour. He
was presented to the king, and was courted and flattered on all
sides. To show the enthusiasm displayed by the people during
his ascent, he tells himself, in his sixth letter, how a lady,
mistaking the oar which fell for himself, was so affected by
his supposed destruction that she died in a few days; but, on
the other hand, he says he was told by the judges ``that he had
certainly saved the life of a young man who might possibly be
reformed, and be to the public a compensation for the death
of the lady''; for the jury were deliberating on the fate of
a criminal, whom they must ultimately have condemned, when
the balloon appeared, and to save time they gave a verdict
of acquittal, and the whole court came out to view the
balloon. The king also was in conference with his ministers;
but on hearing that the balloon was passing, he broke up
the discussion, and with them watched the balloon through
telescopes. The balloon was afterwards exhibited in the
Pantheon. In the latter part of the following year (1785)
Lunardi made several successful ascents from Kelso, Edinburgh
and Glasgow (in one of which he traversed a distance of 110
m.); these he described in a second series of letters. The
first ascent from Ireland was made on the 19th of January 1785
by a Mr Crosbie, who on the following 19th of July attempted
to cross St George's Channel to England but fell into the
sea. The second person who ascended from Ireland was Richard
Maguire. Mr Crosbie had inflated his balloon on the 12th
of May 1785, but it was unable to take him up. Maguire in
these circumstances offered himself as a substitute, and
his offer being accepted he made the ascent. For this he
was knighted by the Lord-Lieutenant. Another attempt to
cross St George's Channel was made by James Sadler on the
1st of October 1812, and he had nearly succeeded when in
consequence of a change of wind he was forced to descend
into the sea off Liverpool, whence he was rescued by a
fishing-boat. But on the 22nd of July 1817 his second son,
Windham Sadler, succeeded in crossing from Dublin to Holyhead.
The first balloon voyage across the English Channel was
accomplished by Jean Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) and Dr.
J. Jeffries, an American physician, on the 7th of January
1785. In the preceding year, on the 2nd of March, Blanchard,
who was one of the most celebrated of the earlier aeronauts,
made his first voyage from Paris in a balloon 27 ft. in
diameter (fig. 5), and descended at Billancourt near Sevres.
Just as the balloon was about to start, a young man jumped
into the car and drawing his sword declared his determination
to ascend with Blanchard. He was ultimately removed by
force. It has sometimes been incorrectly stated that he was
Napoleon Bonaparte; his name in reality was Dupont de Chambon.
In their Channel crossing Blanchard and his companion, who
started from Dover, when about one-third across found themselves
descending, and threw out every available thing from the boat or
car. When about three- quarters across they were descending
again, and had to throw out not only the anchor and cords, but
also to strip and throw away their clothing, which they found
they were rising, and their last resource, viz. to cut away the
