The Dominion of the Air: The Story of Aerial Navigation

ll appearance, might have continued so, when, as if by chance concurrence of events, there arrived both th

ius mentioned at the end of the last chapter, and now in his thirty-sixth year, to put in practice a n

ficulty and delay of producing a sufficient supply by what was at best a clumsy process, as also the positive failure and consequent disappointment which not infrequently ensued, it is easy to understand how through many years balloon ascents, no longer a novelty, had begun to be regarded with distrust, and the profession of a balloonist was doomed to become unremunerative. A simpler and

to be found ready to hand and in sufficient quantity in all towns of any consequence; and by the day of the coronation all was in readiness for a public exhibi

did not awake till he found that the balloon, which had slipped from his friends' hold, was already high above the crowd and requiring his prompt attention. This was, however, by no means an untoward accident, and Green's triumph was complete. By this one venture alone the success of the new method was entirely assured. The cost of the inflation had been reduced ten-fold, the labour and uncertainty a hundred-fold, and, over and above all, the confidence of the public was restored. It is little wonder, then, that in the years that now follow we find the balloon returning to all the favour it had enjoyed in its palmiest days.

ng these he is careful to record an occasion when, making a day-light ascent from Boston, Lincolnshire, he maintained a lofty course, which promised to take him direct t

tific value. He accurately distinguished the reflective properties of the face of the diversified country he traversed. Over Battersea and Wandsworth-this was in 1826-there were white sheets spread over the land, which proved to be corn crops ready for the sickle. Where crops were not the ground was darker, with, here and there, objects absolutely black-in other words, trees and

d conscientious an observer, is best gathered from his own words. The ascent was from Newbury, and it can have been no mean feat to fill, under ordinary circumstances, a balloon carrying two passengers and a considerable weight of ballast at the small gas-holder which served the

lightning in a southeasterly direction, and in a very short space of time attained an elevation of two miles. At this altitude we perceived two immense bodies of clouds operated on by contrary currents of air until at length they became united, and at that moment my ears were assailed by the most awful and longest continued peal of thunder I have ever heard. These clouds were a full mile beneath us, but perceiving other strata floating at the same elevation at which we were sailing, which from their appearance I judged to

he rivers and lakes that a strong wind existed near the earth, we again ascended and continued our course till 7.30 p.m., when a final descent was safely effected in a meadow

unity for this in his friendship with Mr. Green, who enjoyed the management of the fine balloon made for ascents at the then popular Vauxhall Gardens. In the autumn of 1836 the proprietors of this balloon, contemplating making an exhibition of an ascent from Paris, and requiring their somewhat fragile property to be conveyed to that city, Mr. Hollond boldly came forward and offered to transfer it thither, and, as nearly as this might be possible, by passage through the sky. The proposal was accepted, and Mr. Holland, in conjunction with G

y of actual provisions in large quantity, partly of gear and apparatus, and for the rest of sand and also lime, of which more anon. Across the middle of the car was fixed a bench to serve as table, and also as a stage for the winding in and out of an enormous trail rope a thousand feet long, designed by Mr. Green to meet the special emergencies of the voyage. At the bottom of the car was spread a large cushion to serve the purposes of rest. When all was in readiness unfitness of weather baulked the travellers for some days, but Monday, the 7th of November, was judged a favourable day, so that the inflation was rapidly proceeded with, and at 1.30 p.m. the "Monstre Balloon," as it was entitled in the "Ingoldsby Legends," left the earth on her eventful and ever memorable voyage. The weather was fine and promising, and, rising with a moderate breeze from

th a balloon, to prolong life, and this may often best be done by flying low, which doubtless was Green's present intention. But soon his trained eye saw that the ground current which now carried them was leading them astray. They were trending to the northward, and so far out of their course that they would soon make the North Foreland, and so be carried out over the North Sea far from their desired direction. Thereupon Green attempted to put

pidly to fade out from their view. But, ahead, the obscurity was yet more intense, for clouds, banked up like a solid wall, crowned along its frowning heights, with "parapets and turrets and batteries and bastions," and, plunging into this opposing barrier, they were quickly buried in blackness, losing at the same time over the sea all sound from earth soever. So for a shor

of the balloon of wine bottles and spirit flasks, but there is no mention of these being requisitioned at this period. The demand seems rather to have been for coffee-coffee hot; and this by a novel device was soon prepared. It goes without saying that a fire or flame of any

the lights of larger towns, and the contemplation begot romantic reveries. "Were they not amid the vast solitudes of the skies, in the dead of night, unknown and unnoticed, secretly and silently reviewing kingdoms, exploring territories, and surveying cities all clothed in the dark mantle of mys

re of lime became useless, save as ballast, and for this it was forthwith utilised until nothing remained but the empty lime barrel itself, which, being regarded as an objectionable encumbrance, it was desirable to

gh an interminable mass of black marble." Then, presently, an unaccountable object puzzles and absorbs the attention of all the party for a long period. They were gazing open-mouthed at a long narrow avenue of feeble light, which, though apparent

rkness and dead silence of that appalling region, suddenly overhead came the sound of an explosion, followed by the violent rustling of the silk, while the car jerked violently, as though suddenly detached from its hold. This was the idea, leading to the belief that the balloon

ns of Poland, if not the steppes of Russia, and, fearing that the country further forward might prove more inhospitable, they decided to come to earth as speedily as possible. This, in spite of difficult landing, they effected abou