The Mastery of the Air | Page 6

no use, when we consider that paper was employed; hydrogen, too,
owed its lack of success to the same cause for the porosity of the paper
allowed the gas to escape quickly.
It is said that the name "balloon" was given to these paper craft because

they resembled in shape a large spherical vessel used in chemistry,
which was known by that name. To the brothers Montgolfier belongs
the honour of having given the name to this type of aircraft, which, in
the two succeeding centuries, became so popular.
After numerous experiments the public were invited to witness the
inflation of a particularly huge balloon, over 30 feet in diameter. This
was accomplished over a fire made of wool and straw. The ascent was
successful, and the balloon, after rising to a height of some 7000 feet,
fell to earth about two miles away.
It may be imagined that this experiment aroused enormous interest in
Paris, whence the news rapidly spread over all France and to Britain. A
Parisian scientific society invited Stephen Montgolfier to Paris in order
that the citizens of the metropolis should have their imaginations
excited by seeing the hero of these remarkable experiments.
Montgolfier was not a rich man, and to enable him to continue his
experiments the society granted him a considerable sum of money. He
was then enabled to construct a very fine balloon, elaborately decorated
and painted, which ascended at Versailles in the presence of the Court.
To add to the value of this experiment three animals were sent up in a
basket attached to the balloon. These were a sheep, a cock, and a duck.
All sorts of guesses were made as to what would be the fate of the
"poor creatures". Some people imagined that there was little or no air in
those higher regions and that the animals would choke; others said they
would be frozen to death. But when the balloon descended the cock
was seen to be strutting about in his usual dignified way, the sheep was
chewing the cud, and the duck was quacking for water and worms.
At this point we will leave the work of the brothers Montgolfier. They
had succeeded in firing the imagination of nearly every Frenchman,
from King Louis down to his humblest subject. Strange, was it not,
though scores of millions of people had seen smoke rise, and clouds
float, for untold centuries, yet no one, until the close of the eighteenth
century, thought of making a balloon?
The learned Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth

century, seems to have thought of the possibility of producing a
contrivance that would float in air. His idea was that the earth's
atmosphere was a "true fluid", and that it had an upper surface as the
ocean has. He quite believed that on this upper surface--subject, in his
belief, to waves similar to those of the sea--an air-ship might float if it
once succeeded in rising to the required height. But the difficulty was
to reach the surface of this aerial sea. To do this he proposed to make a
large hollow globe of metal, wrought as thin as the skill of man could
make it, so that it might be as light as possible, and this vast globe was
to be filled with "liquid fire". Just what "liquid fire" was, one cannot
attempt to explain, and it is doubtful if Bacon himself had any clear
idea. But he doubtless thought of some gaseous substance lighter than
air, and so he would seem to have, at least, hit upon the principle
underlying the construction of the modern balloon. Roger Bacon had
ideas far in advance of his time, and his experiments made such an
impression of wonder on the popular mind that they were believed to
be wrought by black magic, and the worthy monk was classed among
those who were supposed to be in league with Satan.

CHAPTER III
The First Man to Ascend in a Balloon
The safe descent of the three animals, which has already been related,
showed the way for man to venture up in a balloon. In our time we
marvel at the daring of modern airmen, who ascend to giddy heights,
and, as it were, engage in mortal combat with the demons of the air.
But, courageous though these deeds are, they are not more so than
those of the pioneers of ballooning.
In the eighteenth century nothing was known definitely of the
conditions of the upper regions of the air, where, indeed, no human
being had ever been; and though the frail Montgolfier balloons had
ascended and descended with no outward happenings, yet none could
tell what might be the risk to life in committing oneself to an ascent.

There was, too, very special danger in