ORIGIN OF THE BALLOON

Evening Star, Issue 11776, 5 January 1903, Page 3

ORIGIN OF THE BALLOON

Tho Rov. Mr Bacon, in his lately-published work, tells of tho above in the followin'* terms:— °

• I si Vra ?- a , lsovemfaer ni sht the year 1782 m tbo little town of Anno nay, near Lyons! Two young men, Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, the representatives of a firm of papermakers, wcro sitting together over their parlor fire. While watching the smoko curling up the chimney, one propounded an idea by way of a sudden inspiration: “Why shouldn t smoke be made to raise bodies into the air?” The world was waiting for this utterance, which, it would seem, was on the tip of the tongue with many, others. Caven(bsji had already discovered what he designated “inflammable air,” though no one had as yet given if, its later title of hydrogen gas. Moreover, in treating of this gas “fir Black,, of Edinburgh, as much as ’ fifteen years before the date we have now arrived at, had suggested that it should be made capable of raising a thin bladder in the air. With a shade more of good fortune, or maybe 'with a modicum more of leisure, the learned doctor would have won the invention of the balloon for his own country. Cavallo camo almost nearer, and actually putting the same idea into practice had succeeded, in the spring of 1782, in making soap bubbles blown with hydro-mu gas float upwards. But ho had accomplished no more when, as related, in the autumn of the same year, the brothers Montgolfier conceived the notion of making bodies “ levitate ” by the simpler expedient of filling them with smoko. This was the -crude idea, the application of which iu their hands was soon marked with notable success. Their own trado supplied ready and suitable materials for a first experiment, and. making an obi on - ha- of thin paper a few feet in length, they proceeded to introduce a cloud of smoke into it by holding crumpled paper kindled in a chafing dish beneath the open mouth. What a subject is there here for an imaginative painter! As the smoky cloud formed within, the hag distended itself, became buoyant, and presently floated to the ceilin-. The simple trial proved a complete success,' due, as it appeared to them, to tho ascensive power of a cloud of smoke. From this point the progress of ballooning is a long story of disappointments and successes, and if the moon has not yet been reached—as in 1782 it was wildly hoped it would be—the inflated silk ball has carried explorers tbrou-h many miles of space to a full knowledge of much that would have remained mvstorious