Up in the Clouds | Page 5

obtained was by connecting each globe,
fitted with a stop-cock, to a tube of at least thirty-five feet long; the
whole being filled with water; when raised to the vertical position the
water would run out, the stop-cocks would be closed at the proper time,
and the vacuum secured. It does not seem to have entered the head of
this philosopher that the weight of the surrounding atmosphere would
crush and destroy his thin exhausted receivers, but he seems to have

been alarmed at the idea of his supposed discovery being applied to
improper uses, such as the passing of desperadoes over fortified cities,
on which they might rain down fire and destruction from the clouds!
Perhaps the grandest of all the fanciful ideas that have been
promulgated on this subject was that of Galien, a Dominican friar, who
proposed to collect the fine diffused air of the higher regions, where
hail is formed, above the summit of the loftiest mountains, and to
enclose it in a cubical bag of enormous dimensions--extending more
than a mile every way! This vast machine was to be composed of the
thickest and strongest sail-cloth, and was expected to be capable of
transporting through the air a whole army with all their munitions of
war!
There were many other devices which men hit upon, some of which
embraced a certain modicum of truth mixed with a large proportion of
fallacy. Ignorance, more or less complete, as to the principles and
powers with which they dealt, was, in days gone by, the cause of many
of the errors and absurdities into which men were led in their efforts to
mount the atmosphere. Our space, however, forbids further
consideration of this subject, which is undoubtedly one of considerable
interest, and encircled with a good deal of romance.
Turning away from all those early and fanciful speculations, we now
come to that period in the history of balloon voyaging, or aeronautics,
when true theories began to be philosophically applied, and ascending
into the skies became an accomplished fact.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE FIRST BALLOONS.
The germ of the invention of the balloon lies in the discovery of Mr
Cavendish, made in 1766, that hydrogen gas, called inflammable air, is
at least seven times lighter than atmospheric air. Founding on this fact,
Dr Black of Edinburgh proved by experiment that a very thin bag,
filled with this gas, would rise to the ceiling of a room.

In Dr Thomson's History of Chemistry, an anecdote, related by Mr
Benjamin Bell, refers to this as follows:--
"Soon after the appearance of Mr Cavendish's paper on hydrogen gas,
in which he made an approximation to the specific gravity of that body,
showing that it was at least ten times lighter than common air, Dr Black
invited a party of friends to supper, informing them that he had a
curiosity to show them. Dr Hutton, Mr Clerk of Eldin, and Sir George
Clerk of Penicuik, were of the number. When the company invited had
arrived, he took them into a room where he had the allantois of a calf
filled with hydrogen gas, and, upon setting it at liberty, it immediately
ascended and adhered to the ceiling. The phenomenon was easily
accounted for; it was taken for granted that a small black thread had
been attached to the allantois, that the thread passed through the ceiling,
and that some one in the apartment above, by pulling the thread,
elevated it to the ceiling, and kept it in its position! This explanation
was so plausible, that it was agreed to by the whole company, though,
like many other plausible theories, it turned out wholly fallacious, for,
when the allantois was brought down, no thread whatever was found
attached to it. Dr Black explained the cause of the ascent to his
admiring friends; but such was his carelessness of his own reputation,
that he never gave the least account of this curious experiment even to
his class, and several years elapsed before this obvious property of
hydrogen gas was applied to the elevation of balloons."
Cavallo made the first practical attempts with hydrogen gas six years
later, but he only succeeded in causing soap-bubbles to ascend.
At last the art of aerial navigation was discovered in France, and in
1782 the first ascent was made. The triumph was achieved by Stephen
and Joseph Montgolfier, sons of a wealthy paper-maker who dwelt at
Annonay, on the banks of a rivulet which flows into the Rhone, not far
from Lyons.
These brothers were remarkable men. Although bred in a remote
provincial town, and without the benefit of a liberal education, they
were possessed in a high degree of ingenuity and the spirit of
observation. They educated themselves, and acquired an unusually

large stock of information, which their inventive and original