Flying the Atlantic : 393 



ican experiment in a new form of government was to succeed or fail. 

 Travel by air was welcome indeed if it could make some contribution 

 to the general problem of transportation. 



It was in June of 1783 that the first balloon took to the air and 

 remained suspended for a period of about ten minutes. This was at 

 the town of Annonay, forty miles from the city of Lyons. Two broth- 

 ers, named Montgolfier, were responsible not only for the general 

 idea of balloons but also for the construction of the first examples. 

 Their ideas were very crude — they had simply observed that smoke 

 inevitably rose into the air. They argued, therefore, that if smoke 

 could be confined in some container it would at least lift the con- 

 tainer into the air and possibly also carry some load. However crude 

 their theory, their practice was admirable. They were able and willing 

 to experiment. They were following their father's business of manu- 

 facturing paper and were quite prosperous. Moreover, one of the 

 paper mills gave them a place where they could experiment in secret. 



They discovered that a Hght paper bag, if placed over a fire, or as 

 they would put it, if filled with smoke, would rise to the ceiling. As 

 their balloons got bigger, they discovered that paper was not always 

 strong enough so they tried bags combining linen and paper. Finally 

 a globular linen envelope, 105 feet in circumference, made the ascent 

 outdoors in June 1783, 



Their next experiment was with a silk balloon that rose to 6,000 

 feet and traveled a mile and a half. This flight first attracted and 

 then repelled an audience — the crowd, having no explanation for 

 the behavior of the balloon, fled in terror. By August popular interest 

 in the balloons had developed to such a point that the Montgolfier 

 brothers staged a demonstration flight before King Louis XVI and 

 Queen Marie Antoinette at Versailles. Up to this time nobody had 

 traveled in a balloon and no one knew whether a living creature 

 could survive a flight. On this occasion a sheep, a duck and a rooster 

 made the ascent and survived. 



This made it seem possible that a human being might survive a trip 

 into the air and it was suggested that the king might offer a pardon 

 to one or several condemned criminals who would volunteer to make 

 a flight in a balloon. This idea was spiritedly rejected by one of the 

 king's officers, Jean Pilatre de Rozier, who thought that it was absurd 

 that a criminal should have the honor of having made the first human 

 flight. He proposed to make the ascent himself. 



His first flight was made in a captive balloon, that is, one that rose 

 in the air but was still attached to the earth by a mooring rope. It was 



