Travels in the Air.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 915, 13 September 1889, Page 8

Travels in the Air.

(Karl Blind, tn * Cassell’s Family Magazine.’) Gambetta, it will be remembered, left besieged Paris, in 1870, by the aerial way. So did Fanveille later on, as the bearer of a message. At that time he came over to. England, tryiqg to enlist the sympathy of this country ia favour of France, whose attack upon Germany, to his honour be it said, he had in the beginning, disapproved and condemned. But though the views lie afterwards held, in the autumn of 1870,. could not possibly ba mine, and though 1 had to tell him so in presence of the Positivist leader with whom be came to my house, I have never ceased following with interest his scientific labours, or keeping up with him relations in matters concerning the peaceful progress of France —=?o often, unfortunately, threatened by would-be Dictators. The Germans, in 1870-71, were still far behind the French as regards aerial locomotion ; but they have been busy for many years past with improving themselves in it, Plans for the navigability of air-ships have been frequently elaborated, of late years, at Vienna and Berlin, as well as at Paris and in this country, For the practical result we have yet to wait; but it will come in due tirqe. There is a ‘Society o.f German Aeronauts ’ now—formed, I may be allowed to mention, after an . urgent appeal to that effect had been published in the chief Berlin journal (the Yossicbe Zeitung) by the present writer. The name adopted by the Society is the one suggested by him ; and he was glad to comply with the request addressed to him from Berlin to be the medium of its first communications with the English * Balloon Society.’ Though only an outside observer as regards the scientific principles involved in the question of aerial navigation, I have always felt that the forthcoming solution of the problem will not only effect a great revolution in Ibe means of communication, but also a vast change in warfare.

If the mechanical difficulty is once overcome, we shall no longer be astonished at the description of an aucient Hindoo ruler descending from his cloud-ear, as we read in that beautiful old Indian drama, * Sakuutala,’ or ‘The Story of the Golden Ring,’ Skidbladnir, the ‘ Winged Vessel of Wood,’ on which Freyr, the Norse sun-god, rode, when he did not U3e his boar Gullinbursti, tGolden-bristle, i.e. the sun), will have become a reality with the invention in question. In “’the Edda, the Teutonic Scripture, SUidbladnir is described as a remarkably good ship, so large that all the gods had place on board with their weapons, and always in possession of a fair wind as soon as its sails were set, withersoever this celestial air-ship was steered. After having been nsed, Skidbladnir ‘ could be folded together like a piece of cloth,’ and carried in a pocket—that is, in such a capacity or magic pocket as heavenly rulers may be expected to have. Myths apart, it is not too much to say that, at least in some of theae old poetieal descriptions, there are manifest traces, or dim remembrances, of a lost science or attempted solution of a scientific problem. The tale of Daidalos and Ikaros clearly refers to aeronautical attempts in ' prehistoric Greece. But to return to sober science. Qn mattara aeronautic there has latterly been published a new treatise well worth being read and pondered upon, It is entitled ’ The Navigable

Bhlloon in War and Peach,’ by General W. N. Hutchinson (Eastbourne, 1838). The aged and experienced writer there says : * That ballooning science is in its infancy is one of those trite commonplaces whi.'h run glibly eßough from the tongues of.many who know nothing of either the performances or the promise of the infant'scionce. That valuable useful observations in high altitudes have been made by means of free balloons, and that captive balloons are of immense service in moderate weather in spying out an enemy's strength aud weakness, is the utmost the genet al reader will be called upon to credit; and it will probably be a surprise to most .of those who use the aforesaid phrase to hear that more than once a small ' Navigable ’ has been steered against a breeze, returning after a voyage of several miles to the original starting-point.' And again:—‘It ia undeniable that immense balloons, capable of carrying great weight, have been, successfully floated—at a time, too, when no skin was procurable nearly as efficient and light as could now be manufactured. Giffard’s captive balloon, seen by thousands at the Paris Exhibition in IS7S, had nearly 853,000 cubic feet capacity, with accommodation for fifty-two persons, and supported a cable of sufficient weight and strength to enable it to ride safely through a very severe storm, notwithstand. ing the resistance to the wind presented by the wide pear shape ; and there have been balloons of still larger capacity. With hyarogen gas, its lifting power was 27 tons. It seems incredible that those<who will take the trouble to ri fleet upon this all-important matter can continue to entertain, unless singularly prejudiced, so poor an opinion of the inventive talent of the present ago—the age that has produced such marvels as telegraphy, phonography, aud the wonderful spectroscope. &c. —as to maintain that with the aid of the light, compact, economically burning steam-engines that can now be manufactured, rapid motion with guidance cannot be given to any floating passive mass, however large, on its receiviug a suitable form of progress.* In developing his idea, General Hutchinson, with good reason, remarks that, from the balloon being in the air, impulsive influence imparted to it has been too hastily compared with the flying cf birds, which, by the exercise of great muscular force, have to sustain their weight while in flight. ‘ A comparison with the movements of fish, which, like balloons, have no weight to sustain, would be more appropriate. At any depth they rise by expanding the swimming bladder, sink by contracting it the very principle suggested for adoption in altering a balloon’s altitude. On watching the graceful actions of the gold and silver inmatea of a glass bowl, it will be seen that merely the gentle movements of a small fin effects a complete change of position. Similarly, speakiug mathematically, the abstraction or addition of a pigeon changes the position of the balloon.’ Here a few facts tending in the same direction may bo given. It ia eifficnlt, says General Hutchinson, to realise that in an ordinary free balloon the difference of weight of only ten puunds would make such a okange of altitude as 1400 feet. Yet we have a well-known aeronaut’s assuranoa of the fact. Mr Simmonds, in the interesting account of his attempt, in March 1881, to cross the Channel, tells us that when over Shakespeare’s cliff, at an elevation of 500 feet, he rose to 1900 on throwing overboard merely that weight of fine sand. Even the trifling diminution of weight caused by the release of a pigeon, slightly, yet undeniably increases the altitude, as has been tested by scattering small shreds of paper too thin to be soon affected by gravity. In the thrilling description given by Tissandier of his first aerial voyage, made in the Neptune from Calais with the aeronauts Durof and Barret, iu August 1863, he writes :— ‘ VVe were now hungry ;so opening one of the boxes in the car, I took out a bottle of wine and a chioken, whioh we ate with a good appetite, whilst enveloped in the mist- I threw one of the bones overboard, but Durof remarked that this was an act of imprudence, for no ballast should bo thrown out without orders. 1 believed he was joking; but on consulting the barometer, I was bound to admit the fact upon the clearest evidence. The bone had actually caused us to rise from twenty to thirty yards, so delicately is the balloon equipoised in the air.' This, again, supports the ‘ fish ’ theory of coming aerial locomotion under guidance, as indicated in the valuable treatise of General Hutchinson. After all, as before stated, even the ancients already looked upon the atmosphere surrounding this globe as an ‘Ocean of the Air.’ So the air-ships of the future may well be likened to fishes. As to the principles of construction at present in use, no change, the author remarks, has been made since the talented engineer, Mr Henri Giffard, in 1852, bnilt and successfully steered, in a slanting direction to the wind’s eye, a clumsy cigar-shaped balloon, inflated with coal-gas. But much, General Hutchinson continues, . has been done since in Germany and elsewhere, and attempted in Russia. In France, the brothers Tissandier, M. de Lome, and recently Captain Renard, with M. Krebs, liberally assisted by their Government, have scientifically and energetically taken up the task so admirably entered upon by Giffard. In September and November, last year, Renard and Krebs made highly successful trips from Chalais Ivleudon in a fish-shaped balloon. ‘On pne occasion, a nine mile breeze blowing, they travelled at’ the rate of five miles an hour. After sundry evolutions to convince the most sceptical of. the perfect obedience of their- littffi vess’el to r its helm, they returned to the exact Bpot they had quitted. Electricity was their motive power. Sunh unquestionable feats stimulated the heads of the military departments in other countries 'to strenuous exertions towards yet further improve*' mbnts.’.' ' "