fl 388 ] 

 LXIV. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



AERIAL NAVIGATION. 



W IIILE some persons were making, or endeavouring to 

 make, a great deal of noise in regard to the means they had 

 discovered for directing air-balloons, M. Pauli, a native of 

 Swisseriand, and an excellent mechanic, was inventing and 

 improving, in silence, a machine proper for raising or lower- 

 ing a balloon, for carrying it to the right or left, causing 

 it to turn round at pleasure, and to move several leagues an 

 hour without the least wind. This discovery is now pub- 

 lished. The first trial, if we can believe the account given 

 of it, was crowned with the most complete success. It 

 xvas made at Sceaux, in the small park of M. Lecompte. 

 M. Pauli, on the C2d of August, ascended in the -presence 

 bf a great number of spectators ; and when he reached the 

 height of 500 toises, he caused the machine to move round 

 in a semi-circle, and seemed to return to the' point from 

 which he set out. He then turned several times from right 

 to left, and from left to right ; but being alone in the car^ 

 and having onlv the half of his calculated forces instead of 

 going directly against the wind, he proceeded south-west, 

 while the wind ought to have carried him south-east. By, 

 means of these manoeuvres he advanced to the castle of 

 Osinvijlej near Arpajon, five leagues distant from the 

 place from which he set out, in less than aii hour; and in 

 that interval descended twice to the earth. (Gazette de 

 France, 30th August.} 



According to an account of the ascent of professors 

 Sacharof and Robertson, read in the last public sitting of 

 the Academy of Sciences at Petersburgh, it appears that 

 the object of this aerial excursion was to ascertain with 

 more precision the physical state of the atmosphere 

 and its constituent parts at different elevations, as deter- 

 mined by the barometer. It is certain, that the experi- 

 ments made by Deluc, Saussure, and Humboldt, on high 

 mountains, must have exhibited modifications arising from 

 the terrestrial attraction, or from the decomposition of or- 

 ganised bodies. The above two aerial travellers, therefore^ 

 carried with them twelve reservoirs, in which a barometric 

 Vacuum had been formed. These were destined to collect 

 the atmospheric air at every elevation, indicated by the de- 

 scent of each inch of mercury in the barometer. The 



Academy, 



