NAVIGATING THE AIR 



observations, and partly to impress the Arabs ^\^th the 

 superiority of Christian armies. A school of aeronautics 

 was established at Meudon, and some fifty young men, 

 sworn to secrecy, assigned to it. Balloons were con- 

 structed, tested, and distributed among the different 

 divisions of the army, and one of these was used for re- 

 connoitering the position of the Austrian forces just 

 before the battle of Fleurus. In the course of the day 

 two ascents were made in this balloon, which was held 

 captive by several thousand feet of cable. The second 

 ascent drew the fire of the enemy^s cannon, but the 

 range was too great and no harm was done. Mean- 

 while the French general, Jourdain, was furnished most 

 valuable information by these aerial voyages. 



The Revolutionary wars were also responsible, in- 

 directly, for the invention of the parachute. It will be 

 recalled that even as early as the fifteenth century, 

 Leonardo da Vinci had conceived the idea of a kind of 

 parachute; and that Blanchard had a spread-canvas 

 arrangement to produce a similar effect attached to some 

 of his balloons. It was not until 1799, however, that 

 the folding umbrella-like parachute was invented, the 

 inventor, Gamerin, having developed the idea in trying 

 to devise some means of escape from the fortress of 

 Buda, Hungary, where he was being kept prisoner after 

 one of the battles in the North between the Revolution- 

 ary forces and the Austrians and Prussians. Although 

 he did not actually effect his escape in this dramatic 

 manner, he finally proved that he had not dreamed in 

 vain during his imprisonment by demonstrating the 

 entire practicality of the parachute. 



[243I 



