BALLET 



558 



BALLOON 



connection with all important Australian towns. 

 From a rough mining camp, Ballarat his 

 quickly developed into a well-built, flourishing 

 town, with handsome public buildings, excel- 

 lent schools and b.autiiul parks and gardens. 

 the see of both Roman Catholic and 

 Protestant bishops, and has two fine cathedrals. 

 The surrounding district is particularly suited 

 to sheep breeding, and great quantities of wool 

 are exported. Population in 1911, 42,403. 



BALLET, ballay', an artistic dance, devel- 

 oped and perfected in France, now used chiefly 

 between the acts in a theatrical performance. 

 original aim was to represent actions and 

 feelings through dancing and gestures. This 

 idea arose early in the eighteenth century, but 

 the modern ballet is a spectacular dance rather 

 than a dramatic representation, the main pur- 

 pose being to please the eye. The ballet as 

 used in modern operas is more nearly the ballet 

 of old, for it is usually more or less closely 

 connected with the play and incorporated in 

 it. as in Faust and Tannhduser. The costumes 

 used in the ballet of to-day are extremely ex- 

 pensive. To secure the effects desired the most 

 delicate fabrics and daintiest shades and hues 

 are employed, and the designing calls for the 

 utmost in art and skill. 



The modern ballet is almost always danced 

 by girls who are chosen because of their beauty, 

 and the gowns and dances are designed to 

 exhibit their charms. For this reason many 

 people believe the influence of the ballet is 

 not altogether wholesome, and frequently it 

 may be pernicious. 



BALLOON, baloon'. From the earliest 

 times man has known how to navigate the 

 seas, but to navigate the air was a far more 

 difficult problem, not solved for many cen- 

 turies. Birds did it, even large and heavy 

 birds; it was, therefore, evident that the air 

 could be made to support weight that was 

 properly distributed and properly buoyed up, 

 but the method was not apparent. That the 

 ancients speculated on the subject may be seen 

 from the legend of Daedalus and his son Icarus, 

 and their attempted flight across the sea (see 

 DAEDALUS), but nothing practical was accom- 

 plished until toward the end of the eighteenth 

 century, when the balloon was invented. A 

 balloon is distinguished from an airship or 

 flying machine, the other modern air-navigating 

 device, by the fact that the former uses gas 

 or hot air to make it buoyant, while the latter 

 depends on complicated machinery, and is 

 heavier than air. 



Historical. It is almost impossible, in a day 

 when air craft have become so common as to 

 attract comparatively little attention, to realize 

 the intense excitement that prevailed over the 

 first successful balloon. It was an Englishman 



A PRESENT-DAY BALLOON 



named Cavendish who first announced the 

 principle that a bag of some light material 

 filled with a gas lighter than air, preferably 

 hydrogen, was certain to rise naturally. How- 

 ever, he made no attempt to prove his theory 

 by an experiment, and it was left for two 

 Frenchmen, the Montgolfier brothers, to carry 

 out his principles. They read Cavendish's 

 book, experimented on a small scale, and 

 finally, on June 5, 1783, sent up a great sphere 

 of paper-covered pack cloth, thirty-five feet in 

 diameter. They did not use hydrogen to inflate 

 their balloon, but hot air, obtained by burning 

 damp straw and wool in a little grate below 

 the open mouth of the bag. Any child who has 

 sent up paper balloons by burning alcohol on 

 a sponge at their openings, knows exactly the 

 principle on which this first big balloon was 

 operated. It went up into the air over a mile, 

 and came down safely; and the conquest of 

 the air had begun. 



Improvements. But the hot-air balloon had 

 its disadvantages. When the air cooled, the 

 balloon was bound to fall, and its time in the 

 air could not be regulated; but a^ scientist of 

 Paris, Professor Charles, in August, 1783, con- 

 structed a balloon which had practically all 



