184 



BALLOONING. 



B 



BALLOONING. The recent practical ap- 

 plications of this art are important. The suc- 

 cess of Montgolfier in sending up in 1782 a 

 balloon of large size, and having a surplus lift- 

 ing power of 500 Ibs., confirmed as it was the 

 next year (and now just 80 years since), by the 

 first aerial voyage that of M. Pilatre des Eo- 

 ziers and the Marquis D'Arlandes promised 

 to mankind the mastery of a new field and ele- 

 ment, and gave them in a manner a new sense 

 of freedom. Important practical uses of the 

 novel art were almost immediately suggested. 

 Thus far, however, the attempts to realize these 

 have not been in any case so persevered in as 

 to result in an entirely successful working sys- 

 tem. In fact, the conditions and contingencies 

 the aeronaut may have to encounter are not yet 

 fully known, and no means have been devised 

 for determining the course as well as the eleva- 

 tion of the balloon ; so that some amount of 

 uncertainty and risk still attends the practice. 



Three highly important uses of ballooning 

 have been attempted, and in the order of time 

 here given; namely: reconnoissance in war, 

 scientific exploration, and communication in 

 the way of travel or conveying intelligence be- 

 tween distant points. Of these purposes, the 

 first has been exemplified in the history of the 

 past two years ; and the second of them parti- 

 cularly within the year 1862. The French re- 

 public early instituted a secret school of aeros- 

 tation, with a view to the use of balloons in 

 war. It is stated that at the battle of Fleurus, 

 June 26, 1794, observations of the Austrian 

 camp were in this way made, and that by the 

 signals conveyed to him Gen. Jourdan was 

 materially assisted in winning the victory of 

 that day; as also, that Napoleon had a balloon 

 sent with his army in the campaign in Egypt. 

 The remarkable ascents for scientific purposes 

 in the early part of the century, beginning with 

 that of MM. Gay-Lussac and Biot in 1804, are 

 well known. To test the question, then al- 

 ready agitated, and growing out of the theory 

 of _the trade winds, as to whether there is at 

 heights of about 2 to 4 miles in the atmosphere 

 a quite constant wind moving (hi the north- 

 ern hemisphere) to K E., or generally speak- 

 ing, from westward to eastward, the aeronaut 

 Green, in Nov. 1836, rose from London and 

 actually sailed to Weilburg in Germany ; dis- 

 tance 500 miles, time 18 hours. In Sept. 

 1849, M. Auban sailed from Marseilles to 

 Turin, crossing the Alps, 400 miles in 8 hours. 

 Napoleon III, in his campaign in Italy, sum- 

 moned to his aid the aeronaut M. Goddard ; 

 and by his reconnoissances prior to the battle 

 of Solferino important information respecting 

 the disposition of the Austrian army was fur- 

 nished. For such reconnoissance the balloon is, 

 so to say, tethered by a strong rope, being al- 



lowed to ascend to heights of a few hundred or 

 a thousand feet, as may be necessary, and at 

 will drawn down again. From its elevation a 

 greatly enlarged field of view is secured, upon 

 which rivers, forests, towns, fortifications, 

 armies, &c., appear in a sort of perspective, in 

 reduced but relatively true proportions, as if 

 plotted or laid down on a chart. M. Nadar 

 was at a later date directed to experiment in 

 taking photographs of the field of view from a 

 balloon over Paris, in order to call in photog- 

 raphy also to the aid of military reconnois- 

 sance. In the United States, about the year 

 1860, very clear and satisfactory photographs 

 of the earth's surface, as presented to the point 

 of view of a balloon elevated many hundred 

 feet in the air, were taken by Mr. J. "W. Black, 

 of Boston. Mr. John "Wise, of Lancaster, Penn., 

 having from 1835 to July, 1859, made 230 as- 

 censions, was led by his experience of upper 

 eastwardly currents to revive the project of 

 travelling by means of these. Two of the jour- 

 neys undertaken in consequence form memor- 

 able and well known events in the history of 

 the last-named year ; the first, that of "Wise, 

 with Mr. John La Mountain and two others, 

 July 1, 1859, from St. Louis. Mo., to the town 

 of Henderson, Jefferson county, N. Y., 1,150 

 miles in 19 h. 50 m., or at an average of nearly 

 a mile per minute; the second, that of La 

 Mountain and Mr. John A. Haddock, Sept. 22, 

 1859, from "Watertown, N. Y., and the greater 

 distance after nightfall, to a point in the great 

 Canadian wilderness 150 miles N. of Ottawa 

 city, and almost due N. from the place of set- 

 ting out, a voyage of 300 miles in about 4 

 hours. 



In the existing war between the Govern- 

 ment of the United States and the Southern 

 Confederacy, balloon reconnoissances under 

 charge of Messrs. La Mountain and T. S. 0. 

 Lowe, and perhaps others, have been to some 

 extent availed of. In an ascent over "Washing- 

 ton, June 18, 1861, Mr. Lowe achieved for the 

 first time the feat of telegraphing from an aerial 

 station, in this case at an elevation of about 

 600 ft. This was accomplished by looping 

 with a telegraph wire contiguous to the place 

 fine and flexible helix wires several hundred 

 feet in length, and paying these out from a reel 

 at the same rate with the rope releasing the 

 balloon, the helix wires connecting within the 

 latter with an operating instrument, so that 

 the balloonist, making use of the current of the 

 land wire now turned out of its course to his 

 movable station transmitted intelligence as 

 from any other station to the next on the line, 

 and which was in this case the office in the city 

 of "Washington. The following is a copy of this 

 first despatch, transmitted through the "War 

 Department : 



