Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies

expect from time, from chance, and from the genius of man. The difference which there is between the canoe of the savage and the man-of-war of 124 guns is perhaps as great as that of balloons as they now are and as they will be in the course of a century. If you ask of an aeronaut why he cannot command the motions of his balloon, he will ask of you in his turn why the inventor of the canoe did not immediately afterwards construct a man-of-war. It must be recollected that there have not yet elapsed forty years since the discovery of the balloon, and that to perfect it would be a work of difficulty, as much from the increased knowledge which such a work would demand, as from the pecuniary sacrifices and the personal devotion which it would involve. “Thus this invention, after having at first electrified all savants from the one end of the world to the other, has suffered the fate of all discoveries--it was all at once arrested. Did not astronomy wait long for Newton, and chemistry for Lavoisier, to raise them to something like the splendour they now enjoy? Was not the magnet a long time a toy in the hands of the Chinese, without giving birth to the idea of the compass? The electric fluid was known in the time of Thales, but how many ages did we wait for the discovery of galvanism? Yet these sciences, which may be studied in silent retreats, were more likely to yield fruit to the discoverer than aerostatics, which demand courage and skill, and of which the experiments, which are always public, are attended with great cost.” Robertson’s proposed machine was to be 150 feet in diameter, and would be capable of carrying 150,000 lbs. Every precaution was to be taken in order to make the great structure perfect. It was to accommodate sixty persons to be chosen by the academics, who should stay in it for several months should rise to all possible elevations, pass through all climates in all seasons, make scientific observations, &c. This balloon, penetrating deserts inaccessible by other means of travel, and visiting places which travellers have never penetrated, would be of immense use in the science of geography: and when under the line, if the heat near the earth should be inconvenient, the aeronauts would, of course, easily rise to elevations where the temperature is equal and agreeable. When their observations, their needs, or