CHAPTER IV 



AIR AND WATER AS SERVANTS OF MAN 

 He that will use all winds must shift his sail. FLETCHER 



While the aeroplane has recently come into prominence as a 

 means of aerial transportation, it was for a long time eclipsed by 

 the balloon. The first balloon of which we have any record was 

 manufactured by two Frenchmen, brothers, Jacques and Joseph 

 Montgolfier. These men observed that clouds floated in the 

 air, that the smoke from a fire which appeared very cloudlike 

 rose into the air (see Fig. 61, p. 156), and they conceived the idea 

 that if one could inclose a cloud or a cloudlike smoke in a thin bag, 

 it might carry the bag up also. Their father was a paper manu- 

 facturer and so they could secure some large paper bags. They 

 tried the experiment of inflating these with the smoke over a fire 

 and found that they would rise. They then had a large bag 

 made, some 30 feet in diameter, and proposed to make a public 

 demonstration of their balloon. This occurred June 5, 1783, at 

 Annonay, France. People came for miles around to this little 

 village to see the spectacle, not knowing exactly what it was 

 they were to see. The huge paper bag, reinforced with cotton 

 fabric, was held by ropes over a smoldering fire of chopped straw. 

 Gradually it was inflated, and when finally the restraining ropes 

 were cast off, it sailed up into the air amid the cheers of the wildly 

 enthusiastic crowd. The balloon rose rapidly until it was esti- 

 mated to be a mile high; then, as the hot air in it cooled, it sank 

 back to earth, having been up about ten minutes. 



The fame of this marvelous event quickly spread through 

 France. The king was desirous of having a demonstration, so that 

 on September 19, of the same year at Versailles, the Montgolfier 

 brothers sent up another balloon. This was still larger than the 

 preceding one and oval in outline, the mouth of the balloon 



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