BALLOON VOYAGES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue VII, 18 August 1894, Page 145

BALLOON VOYAGES.

Tub two great institutions of the pigeon and the balloon continued to be of marked interest to France. But, as the year drew towards its close, the pigeons were found to be less useful than they had proved in the early months. They would not fly during the night; and the December days

were so short that messages were in this way frequently delayed. When the birds were sent from the south of France, it was necessary to convey them a long part of the way by hand, and to set them loose at such a distance from Paris as they could traverse before sunset. If not, they went to roost wherever they could, and sometimes failed to continue their journey on the following day. The balloons also were liable to accidents, but, on the whole, did wonders in keeping up intercommunication. They were for the most part made of strong calico, covered with two or three coatings of linseed oil and oxide of lead, and inflated with ordinary gas. Some were manufactured at the Northern, others at the Orleans, railway station; and at the former the pieces were sewn together by machinery. One of the most adventurous of these balloon voyages was that of M. Martin, a naval officer from Finisterre, who gave an account of his experiences to the Bordeaux correspondent of the Daily News. M. Martin started from Paris on the Ist of December in a balloon which had been christened the ‘Jules Favre.’ He rose at once above the snow clouds into a stratum of bitter cold air, along which he was borne with great speed in a westerly direction. He felt like a man who had been buried alive in a vast dark, chilling vault, beyond the reach of human sympathy or aid. Presently the stars were obscured by snow clouds, and it was also found that the instruments used by aeronauts for taking their bearings had got out of order. At four o’clock in the morning M. Martin and his companion perceived water below them,

which at first they supposed to be the Loire ; but shortly afterwards, seeing a lighthouse and ships, they found they were in the neighbourhood of the sea. They were above Belle Isle, and close to the western side of it, so that it was necessary to descend at once, if they would not be swept away over the Atlantic. The pulley which opened the escape-valve had been blown out of reach by the fury of their rushing passage through the air; but M. Martin climbed up the ropes, regained the pulley, and released the gas. They now descended with such rapidity as to lose consciousness. The balloon, on nearing the earth, dashed madly about, tore off the roof of a house, broke down a wall, and came into collision with an old church. M. Martin’s companion was thrown out and seriously hurt, and M. Martin himself, on recovering his senses, found that some coastguardsmen were holding down the car. Among the persons soon attracted to the spot was M. Armand Trochu, brother of the Governor of Paris. This gentleman had a little property on Belle Isle, where he lived with his mother, then in her 84th year. By a strange coincidence, it was the roof of M. Armand Trochu’s house which the * Jules Favre ’ tore off in its wild writhings. The old lady had been praying throughout the night for a sign from heaven that France should be saved by her son ; and when the rafters crashed over her head she exclaimed to her granddaughter that the sign had been given, and that * the Providence of the King of Prussia ’ was not always to prevail.