Andrée and his Balloon 
accompanied him with pleasure. The man was 
so splendid, his enthusiasm so intense, and his 
preparations were and had been so completely 
thought out, that I agreed with him he had, with 
luck, a very great chance of success. As the 
account of the two months I spent with Andrée 
seemed to interest a number of men before whom 
I gave a long lecture soon after my return to 
England, at the Royal Societies Club, I shall 
venture to write a rather full description of it, 
for I do not know of any book or periodical 
that has hitherto referred to it. 
Andrée based his theories on his ability to 
reach the North Pole on the assumption that he 
could keep his balloon inflated with hydrogen 
gas for at least one week; that the winds in the 
spring-time in these latitudes blow more or less 
steadily towards the Pole, namely, from the 
south; and that he could, by allowing a series of 
ropes to drag on the ice, use these as a fulcrum, 
and so far steer his balloon as to allow him to 
set a small square sail with which he had pro- 
vided himself. Now, hydrogen gas is extremely 
hard to contain in any vessel; how much more 
so would this be the case in a balloon that was 
made of silk. This silk was fairly dense and 
thick, but we found that when the balloon was 
filled with gas she leaked badly. To overcome 
this, many gallons of copal varnish were used 
to dress the outer covering. Then there was 
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