Wonderfull Balloon Ascents
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Fulgence Marion >> Wonderfull Balloon Ascents
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Chapter X. The Necrology of Aeronautic
We will conclude this second part by giving a brief notice of
some of those who, in the early days of aerostation, fell martyrs
to their devotion to the new cause, and sometimes victims to
their own want of foresight and their inexperience.
First among these is Pilatre des Roziers, with whose courage and
ingenuity our readers are already familiar. After the passage of
Blanchard from England over to France this hero, who was the
first to trust himself to the wide space of the sky, resolved to
undertake the return voyage from France to England--a more
difficult feat, owing to the generally adverse character of the
winds and currents. In vain did Roziers' friends attempt to make
him understand the perils to which this enterprise must expose
him; his only reply was that he had discovered a new balloon
which united in itself all the necessary conditions of security,
and would permit the voyager to remain an unusually long time in
the air. He asked and obtained from government the sum of 40,000
livres, in order to construct his machine. It then became clear
what sort of balloon he had contrived. He united in one machine
the two modes previously made use of in aerostation. Underneath
a balloon filled with hydrogen gas, he suspended a Montgolfiere,
or a balloon filled with hot air from a fire. It is difficult to
understand what was his precise object in making this
combination, for his ideas seem to have been confused upon the
subject. It is probable that, by the addition of a Montgolfiere,
he wished to free himself from the necessity of having to throw
over ballast when he wished to ascend and to let off this gas
when he wished to descend. The fire of the Montgolfiere might,
he probably supposed, be so regulated as to enable him to rise or
fall at will.
This mixed system has been justly blamed. It was simply "putting
fire beside powder," said Professor Charles to Roziers; but the
latter would not listen, and depended for everything on his own
intrepidity and scientific skill of which he had already given so
many proofs. There were, perhaps, other reasons for his
unyielding obstinacy. The court that had furnished him with the
funds for the construction of the balloon pressed him, and he
himself was most ambitious to equal the achievement of Blanchard,
who was the first to cross the Channel, on the 7th of January,
1785.
The fact was that at this time the prevailing fear in France was,
that Great Britain should bear off all the honours and profits of
aerostation before any of these had been won by France. It was
thus that with an untried machine, and under conditions the most
unfavourable for his enterprise, Roziers prepared to risk his
life in this undertaking, which was equally dangerous and
useless.
The double balloon was alternately inflated and emptied. While
under cover it was assailed by the rats that gnawed holes in it,
and when brought out of its place it was exposed to the tempests,
so that the longer the experiment was delayed, the worse chance
there was of getting through it successfully. At length Roziers
went to Boulogne, and announced the day of his departure; but, as
if by a special Providence, his attempt was delayed by
unfavourable weather. For many weeks in succession the little
trial balloons thrown up to show the course of the wind were
driven back upon the shores of France. During all these trials
the impatient Roziers continued to chafe and torment himself.
At last, on the 13th and 14th of June, 1785, the
Aero-Montgolfiere remained inflated, waiting a favourable moment
for departure. On the 15th at four in the morning, a little
pilot balloon that had been thrown up fell back on the spot from
which it had been thrown free, thus showing that there was no
wind. Seven hours later Roziers, accompanied by his brother
Romain, one of the constructors of the balloon, appeared in the
gallery. A nobleman present threw a purse of 200 louis into the
car, and was preparing to follow it and join in the adventure.
Roziers forbade him to enter, gently but firmly.
"The experiment is too unsafe," he said, "for me to expose to
danger the life of another."
"Finally," says a narrative of the time, "the Aero-Montgolfiere
rose in an imposing manner. The sound of cannon signalised the
departure, the voyagers saluted the crowd, who responded with
loud shouts. The balloon advanced until it began to traverse the
sea, and every one with eyes fixed upon the fragile machine,
regarded it with fear. It had traversed upwards of a league of
its journey, and had reached the height of 700 feet above sea
level, when a wind from the west drove it back toward the shore,
after having been twenty-seven minutes in the air.
"At this moment the crowd beneath perceived that the voyagers
were showing signs of alarm. They seemed suddenly to lower the
grating of the Montgolfiere. But it was too late. A violet
flame appeared at the top of the balloon, then spread over the
whole globe, and enveloped the Montgolfiere and the voyagers.
"The unfortunate men were suddenly precipitated from the clouds
to the earth, in front of the Tour de Croy, upwards of a league
from Boulogne, and 300 feet from the sea beach.
"The dead body of Roziers was found burnt in the gallery, many of
the bones being broken. His brother was still breathing, but he
was not able to speak, and in a few minutes he expired."
De Maisonfort, who, against his own will, was left on the earth,
was witness of this sad event. He has given the following
explanation of it:--
"Some minutes after their departure the voyagers were assailed by
contrary winds, which drove them back again upon the land. It is
probable that then, in order to descend and seek a more
favourable current of air, which would take them out again to
sea, Roziers opened the valve of the gas balloon; but the cord
attached to this valve was very long, it worked with difficulty,
and the friction which it occasioned tore the valve. The stuff
of the balloon, which had suffered much from many preliminary
attempts, and from other causes, was torn to the extent of
several yards, and the valve fell down inside the balloon, which
at once emptied itself."
According to this narrative, there was no conflagration of the
gas in the middle of the atmosphere, nor is it stated precisely
whether the grating of the Montgolfiere was lighted.
Maisonfort ran to the spot when the travellers fell, found them
covered with the cloth of the balloon, and occupying the same
positions which they had taken up on departing.
By a sad chance, that seems like irony, they were thrown down
only a few paces from the monument which marks the spot where
Blanchard descended. At the present day Frenchmen going to
England via Calais do not fail to visit at the forest of Guines
the monument consecrated to the expedition of Blanchard. A few
paces from this monument the cicerone will point out with his
finger the spot where his rivals expired.
"Such was the end of the first of aeronauts, and the most
courageous of men," says a contemporaneous historian. "He died
a martyr to honour and to zeal. His kindness, amiability, and
modesty endeared him to all who knew him. She who was dearest to
him--a young English lady, who boarded at a convent at Boulogne,
and whom he had first met only a few days prior to his last
ascent--could not support the news of his death. Horrible
convulsions seized her and she expired, it is said, eight days
after the dreadful catastrophe. Roziers died at the age of
twenty-eight and a half years."
Olivari perished at Orleans on the 25th of November, 1802. He
had ascended in a Montgolfiere made of paper, strengthened only
by some bands of cloth. His car, made of osiers, and loaded with
combustible matter, was suspended below the grating; and when at
a great elevation it became the prey of the flames. The
aeronaut, thus deprived of his support, fell, at the distance of
a league from the spot from which he had risen.
Mosment made his last ascent at Lille on the 7th of April, 1806.
His balloon was made of silk, and was filled with hydrogen gas.
Ten minutes after his departure he threw into the air a parachute
with which he had provided himself. It is supposed that the
oscillations consequent on the throwing off of the parachute were
the cause of they aeronaut's fall. Some pretend that Mosment had
foretold his death, and that it was caused by a willful
carelessness. However this may be, the balloon continued its
flight alone, and the body of the aeronaut was found partly
buried in the sand of the fosse which surrounds the town.
Bittorff made a great many successful ascents. He never used any
machine but the Montgolfiere. At Manheim, on the 17th of July,
the day of his death his balloon, which was of paper, sixteen
metres in diameter, and twenty in height, took fire in the air,
and the aeronaut was thrown down upon the town. His fall was
mortal.
Harris, an old officer of the English navy, together with another
English aeronaut, named Graham, had made a great many ascents.
He conceived the idea of constructing a balloon upon an original
plan; but his alterations do not seem to have been improvements.
In May, 1824, he attempted an ascent from London, which had much
apparent success, but which terminated fatally. When at a great
elevation, it seems, the aeronaut, wishing to descend, opened the
valve. It had not been well constructed, and after being opened
it would not close again. The consequent loss of gas brought the
balloon down with great force. Harris lost his life with the
fall; but the young lady who had accompanied him received only a
trifling wound.
Sadler, a celebrated English aeronaut, who, in one of his many
experiments, had crossed the Irish Channel between Dublin and
Holyhead, lost his life miserably near Bolton, on the 28th of
September, 1824. Deprived of his ballast, in consequence of his
long sojourn in the air, and forced at last to descend, at a late
hour, upon a number of high buildings, the wind drove him
violently against a chimney. The force of the shock threw him
out of his car, and he fell to the earth and died. His prudence
and knowledge were unquestionable, and his death is to be
ascribed alone to accident. It was an aerial shipwreck.
Cocking had gone up twice in Mr. Green's balloon as a simple
amateur. He took it into his head to go up a third time. He
wished to attempt a descent in a parachute of his own
construction, which he believed was vastly superior to the
ordinary one. He altered the form altogether, though that form
had been proved to be satisfactory. In place of a concave
surface, supporting itself on a volume of air, Cocking used an
inverted cone, of an elaborate construction, which, instead of
supporting him in the air, only accelerated his fall. Unhappily,
Green participated in this experiment. The two made an ascent
from Vauxhall, on the 27th of September, 1836, Green having
suspended Cocking's wretched contrivance from the car of his
balloon. Cocking held on by a rope, and at the height of from
1,000 to 1,200 feet the amateur, with his patent parachute, were
thrown off from the balloon. A moment afterwards Green was
soaring away safely in his machine, but Cocking was launched into
eternity.
"The descent was so rapid," says one who witnessed it, "that the
mean rate of the fall was not less than twenty yards a second.
In less than a minute and a half the unfortunate aeronaut was
thrown to the earth, and killed by the fall."
Madame Blanchard, thinking to improve upon Garnerin, who had
decorated the balloon which ascended in celebration of the
coronation of Napoleon I. with coloured lights, fixed fireworks
instead to hers. A wire rope ten yards long was suspended to her
car; at the bottom of this wire rope was suspended a broad disc
of wood, around which the fireworks were ranged. These consisted
of Bengal and coloured lights. On the 6th of July, 1819, there
was a great fete at Tivoli, and a multitude had assembled around
the balloon of Madame Blanchard. Cannon gave the signal of
departure, and soon the fireworks began to show themselves. The
balloon rose splendidly, to the sound of music and the shoutings
of the people. A rain of gold and thousands of stars fell from
the car as it ascended. A moment of calm succeeded, and then to
the eyes of the spectators, still fixed on the balloon, an
unexpected light appeared. This light did not come from under
the balloon, where the crown of fireworks was already
extinguished, but shone in the car itself. It was evident that
the lady aeronaut, although now so high above the spectators, was
busy about something. The light increased, then disappeared
suddenly; then appeared again, and showed itself finally at the
summit of the balloon, in the form of an immense jet of gas. The
gas with which the balloon was inflated had taken fire, and the
terrible glare which the light threw around was perceived from
the boulevards, and all the Quartier Montmartre.
It was at this moment--a frightful one for those who perceived
what had taken place--that a general sentiment of satisfaction
and admiration among the spectators found vent in cries of
"Brava! Vive Madame Blanchard!" &c. The people thought the lady
was giving them an unexpected treat. Meantime, by the light of
the flame, the balloon was seen gradually to descend. It
disappeared when it reached the houses, like a passing meteor, or
a train of fire which a blast of wind suddenly extinguishes. A
number of workmen and other persons, who had perceived that some
accident had taken place, ran in the direction in which the
balloon appeared to descend. They arrived at a house in the Rue
de Provence. On the roof of this house the balloon had fallen,
and the unfortunate Madame Blanchard, thrown out of the car by
the shock, was killed by her fall to the earth.
This news spread rapidly from Tivoli, where it occasioned a
stupefying surprise. It was the first time that a fall of the
kind had taken place from the sky at Paris. Fireworks were from
this time discontinued, the fete came to an end, and a
subscription was rapidly organised, producing some thousands of
francs, which shortly afterwards were employed in erecting a
monument to the lady, which is now to be seen in the cemetery of
Pere-la-Chaise.
Madame Blanchard had wished to surpass the ordinary spectacle of
an aerial ascent; she had really prepared a SURPRISE for the
spectators. She had prepared and she took with her a small
parachute of about two yards in diameter. After the extinction
of the crown or star of fireworks, she intended to throw this
little parachute loose; and as it was terminated by another
supply of fireworks, it was supposed that the effect would be as
beautiful as surprising.
The unhappy lady was small in stature, and very light, and
unfortunately made use of a very small balloon. That of the 6th
of July, 1819, was only seven metres in diameter; and to make it
ascend with the weight it carried it had to be filled to the neck
with inflammable air. In quitting the earth some of this gas
escaped, and rising above the balloon, formed a train like one of
powder, which would certainly flash into a blaze the moment it
came in contact with the fire. But on this day it was she who
with her own hand fired this train. At the moment when,
detaching the little parachute from her car, she took the light
for the fireworks in her other hand, she crossed this train with
the light and set it on fire. Then the brave woman, throwing
away the parachute and the match, strove to close the mouth of
the balloon, and to stifle the fire. These efforts being
unavailing, Madame Blanchard was distinctly seen to sit down in
her car and await her fate.
The burning of the hydrogen lasted several minutes, during which
time the balloon gradually descended. Had it not been that it
struck on the roof of the house Madame Blanchard would have been
saved. At the moment of the shock she was heard to cry out, "A
moi." These were her last words. The car, going along the roof
of the house, was caught by an iron bar and overturned, and the
lady was thrown head foremost upon the pavement.
When she reached the ground she immediately expired. Her head
and shoulders were slightly burnt, otherwise she exhibited no
marks of the fire which had destroyed the balloon.
PART III. Scientific Experiments--Applications of Ballooning.
Chapter I. Experiments of Robertson, Lhoest, Saccarof, &c.
Robertson is regarded by many as a sort of mountebank; yet such
men as Arago have put themselves to the trouble of examining the
aerostatic feats of this aeronaut, and of examining the results
of his observations.
"The savant Robertson," says Arago, "performed at Hamburg on the
18th of July, 1803, with his countryman, Lhoest, the first
aeronautic voyage from which science has been able to draw useful
deductions. The two aeronauts remained suspended in the air
during five hours, and came down near Hanover, twenty-five
leagues from the spot from which they set off."
The first time that Robertson appears in the annals of
aerostation is in 1802, on the occasion of the sale of the
balloon used at the battle of Fleurus, of which mention will be
made in the chapter on military aerostation. But three years
previously he had been instructed to make a balloon of an
original form, which should ascend in honour of the Turkish
ambassador at the garden of Tivoli. The fete was completely
successful. Turks, Chinese, Persians, and Bedouins will always
be welcome, as on this occasion, at Paris, appearing as they do
only at rare intervals, and for a short time.
The fete took place on the 2nd of July. Robertson presented
himself at the house of Esseid-Ali, to obtain his autograph. The
Turkish ambassador willingly granted the request, and wrote his
name in letters, each of which was two inches in height, on a
sheet of paper. He then offered the aeronaut coffee and comfits,
and promised to be present to witness the balloon ascent. His
name was painted in large characters on a balloon fifteen feet in
diameter, and on the form of which was the figure of a crescent.
The experiment delighted the ambassador, and was well received by
the public.
Jacques Garnerin, when he came to make his debut as an aeronaut,
made an attempt with the parachute, the following August, at the
garden of the Hotel de Biron. The ambassador was asked to honour
the fete, but he declined, saying that he had "made up his mind
that man was not intended for flying--Mahomet had not so willed
it."
Of one of Robertson's more interesting ascents he himself has
left us the following sketch:--
"I rose in the balloon at nine a.m., accompanied by my
fellow-student and countryman, M. Lhoest. We had 140 lbs. of
ballast. The barometer marked twenty-eight inches; the
thermometer sixteen degrees Reaumur. In spite of some slight
wind from the north-west, the balloon mounted so perpendicularly
that in all the streets each of the spectators believed we were
mounting straight up above his head. In order to quicken our
ascent I discharged a parachute made of silk, and weighted in a
way to prevent oscillations. The parachute descended at the rate
of two feet per second, and its descent was uniform. From the
moment when the barometer began to sink we became very careful of
our ballast, as we wished to test from experience the different
temperatures through which we were about to pass.
"At 10.15, the barometer was at nineteen inches, and the
thermometer at three above zero. We now felt all the
inconvenience of an extremely rarefied atmosphere coming upon us,
and we commenced to arrange some experiments in atmospheric
electricity. Our first attempts did not succeed. We threw over
part of our ballast, and mounted up till the cold and the
rarefaction of the air became very troublesome. During our
experiments we experienced an illness throughout our whole
system. Buzzing in the cars commenced, and went on increasing.
The pain we felt was like that which one feels when he plunges
his head in water. Our chests seemed to be dilated, and failed
in elasticity. My pulse was quickened, M. Lhoest's became
slower; he had, like me, swelled lips and bleeding eyes; the
veins seemed to come out more strongly on the hands. The blood
ran to the head, and occasioned a feeling as if our hats were too
tight. The thermometer continued to descend, and, as we ascended,
our illness increased, and we could with difficulty keep awake.
Fearing that my travelling companion might go to sleep, I
attached a cord to my thigh and to ]his, and we held the
extremities of the cord in our hands. Thus trammelled, we had to
commence the experiments which I had proposed to make.
"At this elevation, the glass, the brimstone, and the Spanish wax
were not electrified in a manner to show any signs under
friction--at least, I obtained no electricity from the conductors
or the electrometer.
"I had in my car a voltaic pile, consisting of sixty
couples--silver and zinc. It worked very well on the occasion of
our departure from the earth, and gave, without the condenser,
one degree to the electrometer. At our great elevation, the pile
gave only five-sixths of a degree to the same electrometer. The
galvanic flame seemed more active at this elevation than on the
earth.
"I took two birds with me on coming into the balloon--one of
these was now dead, the other appeared stupefied. After having
placed it upon the brink of the gondola, I tried to frighten it
to make it take to flight. It moved its wings, but did not leave
the spot; then I left it to itself, and it fell perpendicularly
and with great rapidity. Birds are certainly not able to
maintain themselves at such elevations.
"It is notable that the atmosphere, which was of a perfect purity
near the earth, was grey and misty above our heads, and the
beautiful blue sky seen from the surface did not exist for us,
although the weather was calm and serene, and the day the most
beautiful that could be. The sun did not seem dazzling to us,
and its heat was diminished owing to our elevation.
"At half-past eleven, the balloon was no longer visible from
Hamburg. The heavens were so pure beneath us that everything was
distinctly seen by us, though very much diminished by distance.
At 11.40, the town of Hamburg seemed only a red point in our
eyes; the Elbe looked like a straight ribbon. I wished to make
use of an opera-glass, but what surprised me was that when I
lifted it up it was so cold that I had to wrap my handkerchief
around it to enable me to hold it.
"Not being able to support our position any longer, we descended,
after having used up much gas and ballast. Our descent caused
that degree of terror among the inhabitants which the size of our
balloon was calculated to inspire in a country where such
machines had never before been seen. We descended above a poor
village called Radenburg, a place amid the heaths of Hanover.
Our appearance caused great alarm, and even the beasts of the
field fled from us.
"While our balloon rapidly approached the earth, we waved our
hats and flags, and shouted to the inhabitants, but our voices
only increased their terror. The villagers rushed away with
cries of terror, leaving their herds, whose bellowings increased
the general alarm. When the balloon touched the ground, every man
had shut himself up in his own house. Having appealed in vain,
and fearing that the villagers might do us some injury, we
resolved to re-ascend.
"In making this second ascent, we threw over all our ballast; but
in this we were imprudent, for after sailing about at a great
height, and having lost much gas, I perceived that our descent
would be very rapid, and to provide against accident, I gathered
together all the instruments, the bread, the ropes, and even such
money as we had with us, and placed them in three sacks, to which
I attached a rope of a hundred feet in length. This precaution
saved us a shock. The weight, amounting to thirty pounds,
reached the ground before us, and the balloon, thus lightened,
came softly to the ground between Wichtenbech and Hanover, after
having run twenty-five leagues in five and a half hours."
After this ascent Robertson became acquainted with some savants
of Hamburg, and amongst others with Professor Pfaff, who was
interested in aerial travelling as a means of settling certain
meteorological problems. Some days after Robertson's ascent, the
professor wrote to him--
"You speak of a certain height at which the hydrogen gas will
find itself in equilibrium in the air of the atmosphere. I
believe that this height is the extremity of the atmosphere
itself; for as the gas has an elasticity much greater than that
of the air, it will go on dilating as it mounts into the higher
regions of the atmosphere, and its specific weight will diminish
as the weight of atmospheric air diminishes; and it will not
cease to mount until it rises above the atmosphere itself, if two
conditions be completely fulfilled--1, the condition that the gas
may be allowed to dilate without leaving the balloon as it rises;
2, the condition that the gas shall not be allowed to mix at all
with the atmospheric air."
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