Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ himself with the hope of the success of his application, to provide against the accidents which might arise from opposing local currents and storms, or from omissions, imperfections, and unforeseen necessities attendant upon all first trials, he issued a proclamation, addressed to all publishers of newspapers in the world, announcing it as his intention to make a trip across the Atlantic in a balloon in the summer of 1844, and calling upon the seafaring community of all climes not to be alarmed should they happen to be in the vicinity of a balloon, either on the ocean or in the atmosphere, but endeavor to give aid to the adventurers. He proposed to have for the car a sea-worthy boat, which would be of service in case the balloon should fail to accomplish the voyage; and the crew was to consist of three individuals – an aeronaut, a sea-navigator, and a scientific landsman.

      By the time the Congress met, Mr. Wise had enlarged his idea of crossing the Atlantic to a purpose of sailing round the world. In a petition he presented to that assembly, dated Lancaster City, Dec. 20, 1843, he certifies, that by taking advantage of the current from west to east, which, governed by a great general law, blows at all times round the globe, it was quite practicable, from the improved state to which aeronautic machinery can now be perfected, to travel eastward in a balloon with a velocity that would circumnavigate the globe in from thirty to forty days, and that the aeronaut, by taking advantage of the local currents, could vary from a straight course thirty or forty degrees from the latitude of departure, so as to be able to leave dispatches in Europe and China, and return by way of Oregon Territory to Washington City. He therefore prays the Congress to appropriate the money necessary for constructing an aerostadt of 100 feet in diameter of substantial domestic cotton drilling, with a sea-boat capable of enduring the ocean for a car, and so constructed that the masts and rigging may be stowed, ready for erection into sea service at any time that emergency might require. And he concludes by engaging, that, should his proposal meet with the approbation of the Congress, he would readily submit a plan in detail, and would cheerfully superintend the construction of the machinery at his own expense, asking nothing more than the command or directorship of the first experimental aerial voyage round the globe.

      This petition was received and read by the Congress, and referred to the committee of naval affairs. But though the committee to which it was committed might not doubt that Mr. Wise had nerve sufficient to make the attempt, they probably had some doubts as to its practicability and safety, and therefore they made no report. Most men will think that the committee of Congress acted wisely, and that it is fortunate for Mr. Wise himself, that neither the Congress nor his private friends have, by supplying the necessary funds, put it in his power to risk his life in either of those foolish projects. The many accidents and hairbreadth escapes from severe bodily injury, if not from death, which he has met with, during the course of his profession, when undertaking much smaller excursions, scarcely warrant him to conclude, as he does, that such voyages would be attended with fewer risks than sailing in the most approved steam-vessels. To attempt to realize even his first idea of crossing the Atlantic in a balloon, would, in the present imperfect state of aeronautics, be nothing less than madness; to attempt to realize the second, would be "cyclopicus furor," to borrow a phrase from John Calvin – "a gigantic madness;" and we can only account for his forming or broaching such ideas, on the principle of vanity, or of that insensibility to physical danger which the adventurous gradually and unconsciously contract. We do not affirm that such schemes are absolutely impracticable, or that they will never be safely accomplished; for the astonishing discoveries already made in science render it impossible for us to say to what extent the elements may be rendered obedient to the sway of the human will. To speak of crossing the ocean, against wind and tide, in a vessel, by the simple aid of a kettle filled with boiling water, was, not many years ago, laughed at as the ravings of a crack-brained fool. A shaved head and a strait waistcoat were the promised rewards of the original projector of that most noble enterprise. And yet the foaming billows of the great deep are at this day hourly plied by the rushing steam-ship, bounding and puffing recklessly along, as though it were itself the victim of the madness ascribed to its projector, but landing, nevertheless, its precious freight unharmed upon the distant shores. Now, if such stupendous and astonishing results have been realized, what may not man, under the irresistible dominion of the great master-spirit of the age —progress– what may he not accomplish?" But it remains yet to be demonstrated that a pathway in a balloon through the atmosphere is less perilous than one in a ship on the ocean. The safety of traveling in balloons must be tested by smaller trips, before men will believe that these frail vessels of silk, or cambric muslin, may be safely trusted as a means of locomotion across the mighty Atlantic, or, what would be a still greater achievement, around the globe itself.

      Having thus briefly traced the history of aeronautics, we shall now inquire into the practical value of the art.

      After the discovery of the hydrogen-gas balloon, the most extravagant projects dazzled and bewildered the minds of men. To journey through the air from one part of the globe to another, or even to circumnavigate the globe itself, in balloons, was child's play, compared with the magnificent results that were anticipated. It was fondly expected that the new discovery would open up a channel of communication between the earth and its sister planets, and that the time was not far distant when men would be embarking from the Earth, in a balloon, for the Moon, or for Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Asteroids, or some of the other planets, just as they embarked in a ship for France, Italy, India, China, Africa, or America. They forgot that the laws of gravitation, which bind man as by chains of adamant to this world, would ever interpose an insurmountable obstacle to the realization of such wild imaginings; that the atmosphere has its limits as well as the ocean, extending, it is calculated, not much beyond forty miles above the earth's surface; that, at a certain height, it is as light, by reason of its rarity, as the lightest gas with which a balloon can be inflated, thereby rendering all farther ascent impossible; and that, even before the aeronaut had reached that height, very serious consequences would ensue from the intense cold, from the diminution of atmospheric pressure, and from the inadequacy of a too rarified atmosphere for supporting respiration. Such overwrought expectations, however, produced by the first excitement of a great discovery, soon subsided, when men began soberly to reflect on the immutable laws, or, which is the same thing, the powerful mandate of the Creator, which confines all things within their appointed sphere.

      But though the idea of emigrating by means of balloons to foreign worlds was relinquished, there still existed a desire to render them subservient to important terrestrial purposes, and various suggestions were made as to the uses to which they might be applied. It was proposed to employ their power of ascension as a mechanical force for raising water from mines, for transporting obelisks, and placing them on greater elevations, or for raising, without any scaffolding a cross or a vane to the top of a high spire. It was proposed that they might be employed as a means of making an escape from surrounding icebergs in the ocean, or for effecting a landing to otherwise inaccessible mountains, and observing their cloud-capped peaks – for exploring the craters of volcanoes – for traversing vast swamps and morasses – and for the improvement of the infant science of meteorology. It was besides predicted that they would become a safe, easy, and expeditious mode of traveling, and of conveying the products of every land and clime from one part of the globe to another. It is long since Dr. Dick suggested, in his "Christian Philosopher," that the missionaries of the cross might yet be able to avail themselves of the aid of balloons in going forth to distant regions to proclaim to the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that then there would be a literal fulfillment of the prediction of the last of the inspired seers, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." But to only two purposes has the ascending power of the balloon been as yet applied – to the reconnoitring of hostile armies, by the French, for a short time – and, in one or two instances, to the making of scientific observations. Only a single attempt, and a very absurd one, has been made to get up a traveling balloon. The gold-hunters of America, impatient of the slow process by which ships transport them to the golden regions of California, and, as if determined to press the air into the service of giving them a speedier conveyance, lately proposed to build a balloon, to carry them out at the rate of 200 miles per hour. A model of the machine was exhibited in New York and Philadelphia, and it created considerable СКАЧАТЬ