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172
Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies
·
Fulgence Marion
5
London,
January,
1870.
BALLOONS
AND
AIR
JOURNEYS.
PART
I.
THE
CONQUEST
OF
THE
SKIES.--1783.
Chapter
I.
Introduction.
The
title
of
our
introduction
to
aeronautics
may
appear
ambitious
to
astronomers,
and
to
those
who
know
that
the
infinite
space
we
call
the
heavens
is
for
ever
inaccessible
to
travellers
from
the
earth;
but
it
was
not
so
considered
by
those
who
witnessed
the
ardent
enthusiasm
evoked
at
the
ascension
of
the
first
balloon.
No
discovery,
in
the
whole
range
of
history,
has
elicited
an
equal
degree
of
applause
and
admiration--never
has
the
genius
of
man
won
a
triumph
which
at
first
blush
seemed
more
glorious.
The
mathematical
and
physical
sciences
had
in
aeronautics
achieved
apparently
their
greatest
honours,
and
inaugurated
a
new
era
in
the
progress
of
knowledge.
After
having
subjected
the
earth
to
their
power;
after
having
made
the
waves
of
the
sea
stoop
in
submission
under
the
keels
of
their
ships;
after
having
caught
the
lightning
of
heaven
and
made
it
subservient
to
the
ordinary
purposes
of
life,
the
genius
of
man
undertook
to
conquer
the
regions
of
the
air.
Imagination,
intoxicated
with
past
successes,
could
descry
no
limit
to
human
power;
the
gates
of
the
infinite
seemed
to
be
swinging
back
before
man’s
advancing
step,
and
the
last
was
believed
to
be
the
greatest
of
his
achievements.
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