Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies

A number of balloons were remarkable for the beauty and elegance which we have already spoken of. Among the most beautiful we may mention the “Flesselles” balloon and Bagnolet’s balloon. Of the ascents which immediately succeeded those that have been treated in the first part of our volume, and which are the most memorable in the early annals of aerostation, that of the 17th of January, 1784, is remarkable. It took place at Lyons. Seven persons went into the car on this occasion--Joseph Montgolfier, Roziers, the Comte de Laurencin, the Comte de Dampierre, the Prince Charles de Ligne, the Comte de Laporte d’Anglifort, and Fontaine, who threw himself into the car when it had already begun to move. A most minute account of this experiment is given in a letter of Mathon de la Cour, director of the Academy of Sciences at Lyons:--“After the experiments of the Champ de Mars and Versailles had become known,” he says, “the citizens of this town proposed to repeat them and a subscription was opened for this purpose. On the arrival of the elder Montgolfier, about the end of September, M. de Flesselles, our director, always zealous in promoting whatever might be for the welfare of the province and the advancement of science and art, persuaded him to organise the subscription. The aim of the experiment proposed by Montgolfier was not the ascent of any human being in the balloon. The prospectus only announced that a balloon of a much larger size than any that had been made would ascend--that it would rise to several thousand feet, and that, including the animals that it was proposed it should carry, it would weigh 8,000 lbs. The subscription was fixed at L12, and the number of subscribers was 360.” It was on these conditions that Montgolfier commenced his balloon of 126 feet high and 100 feet in diameter, made of a double envelope of cotton cloth, with a lining of paper between. A strength and consistency was given to the structure by means of ribbons and cords. The work was nearly finished when Roziers went up in his fire-balloon from La Muette. Immediately the Comte de Laurencin pressed Montgolfier to allow him to go up in the new