AEROSTATION. 
449 
wool, was performed in about nine minutes ; and its force of ascen- 
sion, when inflated, was so great, that it raised eiglit men, who held 
it, some feet from the ground. This machine was so much damaged 
by the rain, that it was found necessary to prepare another for exhi- 
bition, before the king and royal family, on the nineteenth. This new 
machine consisted of cloth, made of linen and cotton thread, and was 
painted with water colours both within and without. Its height was 
nearly sixty feet, and its diameter about 13 feet. Having made the 
necessary preparations for inflating it, the operation was begun about 
one o’clock on the nineteenth of September, before the king and queen, 
the court, and all the Parisians who could procure a conveyance to 
Versailles. In eleven minutes it was sufficiently distended, and the 
ropes being cut, it ascended, bearing up with it a wicker cage, in 
which were a sheep, a cock, and a duck. Its power of ascension, or 
the weight by which it was lighter than an equal bulk of common air, 
allowing for the cage and animals, was 696 pounds. This balloon 
rose to about 1440 feet ; and being driven by the wind, it descended 
gradually, and fell gently in a wood, at the distance of 10,200 feet 
from Versailles, after remaining in the atmosphere eight minutes. 
The animals in the cage were safely landed. The sheep was found 
feeding ; the cock had received some hurt on one of his wings, pro- 
bably from a kick of the sheep; the duck was perfectly well. 
The success of this experiment induced M. Pilatre de Rozier, with 
a philosophical intrepidity which will be recorded with applause in 
the history of aerostation, to offer himself as the first adventurer in 
this aerial navigation. Mr. Montgolfier constructed a new machine 
for this purpose in a garden in the Fauxbourg St. Antoine. Its shape 
was oval ; its diameter being about forty-eight feet, and its height 
about seventy-four feet. To the aperture at the bottom was annexed 
a wicker gallery, about three feet broad, with a ballustrade about 
three feet high. From the middle of the aperture was suspended by 
chains, which came down from the sides of the machine, an iron 
grate or brazier, in which a fire was lighted for inflating the machine, 
and port-holes were opened in the gallery,, towards the aperture, 
through which any person, who should venture to ascend, might feed 
the fire on the grate with fuel, and regulate the dilatation of the 
enclosed air of the machine at pleasure. The weight of the aerostat 
was upwards of 1600 pounds. On the 15th of October, the fire 
being lighted, and the machine inflated, M. Pilatre de Rozier placed 
himself in the gallery, and ascended, to the astonishment of an immense 
number of spectators, to the height of eighty-four feet from the ground, 
and kept the machine afloat above four minutes, by repeatedly throw- 
ing straw and wool into the fire : the machine then descended gradu- 
ally and gently, through a medium of increasing density, to the ground ; 
and the intrepid aeronaut assured the spectators he had not experi- 
enced the least inconvenience in this aerial excursion. This experi- 
ment was repeated on the seventeenth and the nineteenth, when M. 
P. de Rozier, in his descent, and in order to avoid danger, by reas- 
cending, evinced to a multitude of observers, that the machine might 
be made to ascend and descend at the pleasure of the aeronaut, by 
increasing or diminishing the fire in the grate. 
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