NEW AERONAUTICAL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLAND.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 11, 6 February 1869, Page 3

NEW AERONAUTICAL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLAND.

[From a London Paper.] Over the A&hburnham grounds, immediately to tin; wesjl of Civinorno Gardens, now floats a balloon of unparalleled dimensions, and which, from the peculiarity of its accompanying machinery, seems likely to acquire a remarkahlo place in the history of aeronautical science. It is nearly spherical in shape ; it is ninety feet in diameter ; it is capable of receiving 350,000 cubic feet of gas; and it has a lifting power of eleven tons. Its magnitude will perhaps bo brought more distinctly home to the imaginations of our readers by the statement that the receptive capacity of the balloon in which Mr. Glaisher made his important experiments, and which Avas, we believe, the largest one hitherto constructed in England, held only 93,000 cubic feet of gas, or about one-fourth of the quantity for which the new aerial monster can afford space. But the use to which this immense power may be applied is perhaps more remarkable and more likely to lead to valuable as well as interesting results than the power itself. Balloons, from their erratic and unmanageable propensities, have hitherto been little better than huge and costly toys. The " Captive" balloon is placed, in one important respect, under human control, through its connection with the solid earth by means of a cable, just as a boy's kite is held by a string ; and to this circumstance, as will be easily understood, it owes its name. This cable is worked by steam from a drum twenty-one feet long and seven feet iv diameter, and passes underground to the balloon. Its weight is two and a-half tons, and its length. 2,000 feet. The weight of the balloon, with its car, ropes and netting, is three and a-half tons, and this, with a cable, gives a total dead weight of six tons, so that the available carrying power is five tons, which is about two tons more than would usually be required to lift thirty persons, the number the car is constructed to accommodate. The gas which is to inflate the vast machine, and which is pure hydrogen, is worked by a steam engine of 200 horse-power, and for its manufacture some 300,000 pounds of sulphuric acid and 110,000 pounds of iron filings have to be consumed. So costly and so delicate "a work necessarily required some external protection, and an immense circular screen, formed of boards and of canvas, shuts out the public from the space in which the balloon rests. The balloon with all its machinery is French property, and has been entirely devised, and is almost exclusively worked, by Frenchmen, ft offers a proof, too, of the enterprise as well as the skill of our brilliant and ingenious neighbours. It has, we have been informed, involved from first to last an outlay of £28,000, and it is now proposed that, some return should be obtained for this investment by charging Is. to each visitor within the enclosure, and £1 to the aeronauts who ascend in tho apparently safe and commodious car. Some experimental trips were made with the balloon on a recent afternoon. In the first of these tho ascent took place with mere ballaßt ; in the second, M. Godard, son of the celebrated French aeronaut, and M. Yon, who seema to have a large share in the management of tho whole undertaking, wore the solo occupants of the car ; in the third, thirty persons, including two French ladies and a boy, filled the ascending vehicle, and after having attained in it an elevation of nearly 2,000 feet— the total length of the cable— returned from their aerial voyage with perfect ease and safety, and evidently much gratißed with the novel and striking glirapsa of London and its environs, which in spite of the. warm haze obscuring the atmosphere, they were thus enabled to obtain. Those private experimental trips were to have been renewed yesterday, and the show was to have been thrown open to the public to-day ; but it was found that a rathor considerable escape of gas had taken place ; and in the attempt* yesterday afternoon to remedy this defect, an accident took place which may not improbably have the effect of delaying tho intended exhibition for several days. A gasometer was constructed for the purpose of staring a supply of hydrogen to meet the inevitable waste which will bo constantly occurring. A pit or well had, of course, to be dug under this gasometer ; and, in order to pump tho water into the pit, one of Merryweather's steam-engines was being employed in immediate proximity to the spot, on which were standing two rows of barrels in which the gas is generated. The engine was not engaged in this operation many minute.*, when the sparks from its. chimney slightly set fire to some bags filled with iron ; it was then stopped for a few moments, but its working having, in spite of the warning thus afforded, been soon renewed, the sparks were next carried to the retorts, causing sixteen of them to explode in rapid succession, and creating a scene of considerable excitement among the whole party filling the ground. The barrel-heads and the zinc-pipea by which they were connected with the gasometer were instantly blown away, and many of the fragments were driven over the lofty screen that surrounded tho balloon. One of the workmen traa struck by a piece of this wood, and was slightly cut in the face, but no other damage, forkanately, was inflicted, and the accident might, under less favourable circumstances, have been attended with far more distressing consequences. As it was, it may render it impossible to recommence the ascent for a low days, but it cannot interfere with the ultimate success of tho undertaking in which the contractor* of this great balloon have engaged.