August 17, ISS."?.] 



SCIENCE. 



189 



sbows the average of 85.1 %. Of the cantion- 

 aiy signals disjihivcd, 80.4 % were justified liy 

 winds exceeding twenty-live miles an hour at 

 or within one hundred miles of the station. 



THE FALL OF A BALLOON.^ 



Ik the August (IS82) number of VAeronante, 



accounts were given of the different ascents made 



on the 14th of July of that year. Among tliose 



ascents that of Cottin and Perron was of especial 



Fig. 1. 



Fio. 2. 



interest, not because of the length of the voyage, but 

 from its brevily, and on account of the fall which 

 en<led it. The balloon had barely started from Paiis 

 « when a rent was formed in the upper part, and the 

 balloon descended at Saint-Ouen. This occurrence 

 is not entirely unknown; but that which does not 



Fio. 3. 



happen often is, that an artist, Mr. .Tacqiie, ch.inced 

 to be at his window, and was able to make rapid 

 drawings of the balloon during its descent, and Mr. 

 L. Gillon viewed the accident from the Place Wag- 

 rant, and made three drawings. 



Mr. Cottin, thinking that the aeronauts had not 

 attached sufficient importance to his ascent, has pub- 

 lished an account of it in a brochure, illustrating it 

 with the drawings of Jac<)Ue ami Gillon. He begins 

 his statement. " It was sixteen minutes past four. 

 The wind was blowing violently 

 from the south-east. The tem- 

 perature was 28° C. At starling, 

 the voyagers felt nervous, and 

 noticed some excitement in the 

 movements of those who were as- 

 sisting. Nevertheless, Ihey jtart- 

 ed, saluting the crowd, who re- 

 sponded as only a sympathetic 

 Pari>ian crowd knows bow. 

 They rose over the building Fio. 4. 



which forms the corner of the 

 Place Wagr.am. Thirty kilograms of ballast w.is 

 thrown out; and, relieved of this weight, the bal- 



< Taken, witb the illunlrutlona, fruni tAeronautt, Juni-, 1S83. 



loon shot up. 'With one bound it was four hundred 

 metres; another, and it had reached a height of six 

 hundred metres. At this lime it was just twenty-four 

 minutes past four. The aeronauts felt that the bal- 

 loon seemed to stop. They were told afterwards that 

 they began to turn. Cottin felt a trembling of the 

 basket. Some seconds passed. Then the noise of 

 the flapping silk was heard." 



The balloon was torn when at a height of seven 

 hundred and three metres, as shown by a pocket 

 barometer which Cottin had with him, and saved 

 in good condition. For the first hundred and 

 twenty metres of the fall the motion was regular. 

 Then a swinging motion began, and finally the fall 



increased in speed. The oscillations increased enor- 

 mously, and tlie basket swung through the air with a 

 dizzying velocity. At times the balloon took up an 

 almost horizont.ll position in the direction of the 

 wind. This swinging continued till a point within a 

 hundred and twenty or a hundred and lliiriy me- 

 tres of the earth was reached. Fiotli this point 

 the fall was nearly vertical, as the silk had formed 

 it>elf into a parachute. During this period Mr. 

 Perron threw out the last of the ballast, the guide- 

 rope, and cut the conls of the anchor. Led by 

 Perron's example, Cottin threw over a bottle of cold 

 coffee, which, he remarks, 'might have injured or 

 even dlstiguied thein.' 



