FLIGHT AND FLYING MACHINES. » 499 
About the same time the balloon fever set in, and everybody tried 
balloons. Now it has been popularly supposed that the great objection 
to a balloon is that it is impossible to steer it, but in the 18th century, 
after long and laborious experiments, the French people actually 
discovered an wmfallible method of steering a balloon, of which an old 
print has been handed down to us, and I believe there was a comic 
song published in connection with it. The characteristic French 
engraving really represents a balloon being drawn along by donkeys, 
the man on the balloon is suspended by his waist and is blowing a 
horn and carrying a lantern to signal to the donkey drivers. Balloonists 
made fortunes in those days, and of course they got up no end of wild 
schemes and fantastic devices to attract the public taste; and one 
Robertson designed an aerial vessel called the “‘ Minerva,” with which 
he proposed to make a tour of the world. The figure shows a globular 
balloon with a gigantic bird (the gallic cock) at the top, and there was 
a ship attached to the balloon in case the thing should come to grief 
and they should have to sail across the sea. Below the balloon sus- 
pended by ropes was an enormous barrel containing provisions and 
various things necessary for the voyage, and near it a little house was 
suspended like a bird-cage hanging from the ceiling for any inquisitive 
ladies, who wanted to accompany the expedition, and who did not wish 
to be distracted by the presence of the other members of the party ! 
Well, this balloon fever seems to have diverted people’s attention from 
the subject of flight proper, but somewhat later one Jacob Deeghen 
made a few experiments with a kind of double parachute, which he was 
to work up and down for the purpose of lifting himself in the air; but 
he found out that it would not quite lift him, and so he attached it to 
a balloon. He might just as well have left out the parachute now, one 
would think. He took it to Paris and wanted to get an exhibition 
there, but he was an Austrian, and of course the French did not very 
much like the Austrians, accordingly they pulled his machine to pieces 
and gave him a thrashing, so that his experiments never came off. In 
1850, a Frenchman, M. Pétin, devised a great aerial vessel with which 
he actually succeeded in raising 1000 pounds. You must not, however, 
suppose that the machine lifted this weight in the air. He counted his 
pounds in money and not by weight, and got them by raising the wind, 
that is to say, going round and collecting subscriptions to the tune of 
£1000 to make his machine. The machine was designed and built ; 
but before M. Pétin could make an ascent in the air, he happened to 
quarrel with some of the officials, and the Prefect refused to give him 
the necessary permission to let it up. Perhaps that was lucky. At 
anyrate, as he could not try the thing in France, he went over to 
England, and then he went over to America. In America he got 
another machine constructed, and made preparations to let it off at New 
Orleans ; the machine was all ready in the Place du Congo (so the 
French historian relates) but it was found last thing that the gasworks 
were not equal to the occasion! M. Pétin could not get sufficient gas 
to inflate his balloons, so he again had a very good excuse for not 
going up. The machine consisted of a platform supported by five 
balloons side by side and with a gigantic screw propeller in the centre, 
