HISTORY OF AEROSTATION. 7i 



which be arose, as measured by mathematical instruments, was 

 thought to be very little less than 10,000 feet; and he remained in 

 the atmosphere an hour and a quarter. Notwithstanding the rapid 

 progress of aerostation in France, it is remarkable that we have no 

 authentic accounts of any experiments of this kind being attempted 

 in other countries. Even in our own island, where all arts and 

 sciences find an indulgent nursery, and many their birth, no aero- 

 static machine was seen before the month of November, 1*83. Va- 

 rious speculations have been made on the reasons of this strange 

 neglect of so novel and brilliant an experiment ; but none seemed 

 to carry any shew of probability, except that it was said to be dis- 

 couraged by the leader of a philosophical society, expressly instituted 

 for the improvement of natural knowledge, for the reason, as was 

 said, that it was a discovery of a neighbouring nation. Be this 

 however as it may, it is a fact that the first aerostatic experiment 

 was exhibited in England, by a foreigner unconnected and unsup- 

 ported. This was a Count Zambeccari, an ingenious Italian, who 

 happened to be in London about that time. He made a balloon of 

 oiled silk, ten feet in diameter, weighing only eleven pounds ; it was 

 gilt, both for ornament, and to render it more impermeable to the 

 inflammable air, with which it was to be filled. The balloon after 

 being publicly shewn for several days in London, was carried to the 

 Artillery. ground, and there bein filled about three-quarters with 

 inflammable air, and having a direction, inclosed in a tin box, for 

 any person by whom it should afterwards be found, it was launched 

 about one o'clock on the 25th of November, 1783. At half past 

 three it was taken up, near Petworth, in Sussex, forty-eight miles 

 distant from London ; so that it travelled at the rate of near twtiity 

 miles an hour.. Its descent was occasioned by a rent in the silk, 

 which must have been the effect of the rarefaction of the inflamma- 

 ble air when the balloon ascended to a rarer part of the atmosphere. 

 The attempts of M Blanchard to direct his machine through the 

 atmosphere, were repeated in 1784, by Messrs. Morveau and Ber- 

 trand, at Dijon, who raised themselves with an inflammable air. 

 balloon to the height, as it was thought, of 13,000 feet: passing 

 through a space of eighteen miles in an hour and twenty. five mi- 

 nutes. M. Morveau had prepared oars for directing the machine 

 through the air ; but they were damaged by the wind, so that only 

 two remained serviceable ; by working these, however, they were 

 able to produce a sensible i-rl'ecl on the motion of the machine, 

 lu a third aerial voyage performed by M. Blaucbard, he seemed tw 



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