72 HISTORY OF AEROSTATION. 



produce some effect by the agitation of his uinu'S both in ascend- 

 ing, descending, moving sideways, and even in some MI* linst 

 the wind : however this is supposed, with some probability, to have 

 been a mistake, as, in all his succeeding VON ages, the effects oi hit 

 machinery could not be perceived. 



Having said thus much with regard to the conducting aerostatic 

 machines through the atmosphere, we shall now relate the attempt* 

 made to lessen their expence, by falling upon some contrivance to 

 ascend without throwing out ballast, and to descend without I- 

 any of the inflammable air. The first attempt of tliis kind \\.n 

 made by the Duke de Chartres; who, on the 15th of July, 1784, 

 ascended with the tvvo brothers, Charles and Robert, from the park 

 of St. Cloud. The balloon was of an oblong form, made to ascend 

 with its longest diameter horizontally, and measured fifty. five feet in 

 length, and twenty-four in breadth. It contained within it a 

 smaller balloon filled with common air ; by blowing into which with 

 a pair of bellows, and thus throwing in a considerable quantity of 

 common air, it was supposed that the machine would become suf- 

 ficiently heavy to descend ; especially as, by the inflation of the inter- 

 nal bag, the inflammable air in the external one would be condensed 

 into a smaller space, and thus become specifically heavier. The 

 voyage, however, was attended with such circumstances as rendered 

 it impossible to know what would have been the event of the scheme. 

 The power of ascent, with which they set out, seems to have 

 been very great ; as in three minutes after parting from the ground, 

 they were lost in the clouds, and involved in such a dense vapour 

 that they could see neither the sky nor the earth. In this situation 

 they seemed to be attacked by a whirlwind, which, besides turning 

 the balloon three times round from right to left, shocked, and beat 

 it so about, that they were rendered incapable of using any of the 

 means proposed for directing their course, and the silk stuff of which 

 the helm had been composed was even torn away. No scene can 

 be conceived more terrible than that in which they were now in- 

 volved. An immense ocean of shapeless clouds rolled one upon 

 another below them, and seemed to prevent any return to the earth, 

 which still continued invisible, while the agitation of the balloon be- 

 came greater every moment. In this extremity they cut the cords 

 \\lnrh held the interior balloon, and of consequence it fell down 

 upon the aperture of the tube that came from the large balloon 

 into the boat, and stopped it up. They were then driven upwards 

 by a gust of wind from below, which carried them to the top of 



