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

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СКАЧАТЬ minds of the credulous. It was stated, in a respectable journal of New York, in 1849, that the machine was actually in course of construction, and the steam-engine finished, but nothing more has since been heard of it. "Had these projectors," says Mr. Wise, "gone on from their miniature model, to the erection of one capable of carrying one or two persons, in order to prove its practicability on a larger scale, there might have been reason to believe that they harbored an idea of its general usefulness. But when the project embraced at once so magnificent a scheme, as that contemplated in the swooping strides toward the modern Dorado, with a cargo of a hundred gold-hunters, it seemed too much for sober-minded people; and brought upon itself philosophical criticism and scientific condemnation, and, with that, a good share of opposition to the hopes and expectations of aerial navigation in any shape."

      Aerostation is at present applied to no practical useful purpose; it is a mere plaything, occupying no higher a position than catchpenny mountebank exhibitions. Ascents are made in balloons from no other motive, or for no other object, than to draw money from the pockets of the multitude, by ministering to their enjoyment; and when made by persons properly acquainted with the principles and practice of the art – for by such alone can they be effected with safety – and with those precautions which experience has shown to be requisite, they might be liable to no great objection, so long as the people are willing to pay for them; but if conducted by unqualified persons, or by the most skillful, with a daring recklessness of personal danger, or in a manner involving suffering to any sentient being, they ought to be discouraged in every legitimate way by every friend of humanity, as at variance alike with the principles of morality and with the benevolent lessons of the Christian faith. No man may lawfully peril his own life, or subject the inferior animals to unnecessary pain, for the gratification of the all-devouring thirst of the public for exciting exhibitions; and in the very act of encouraging and witnessing such exhibitions, we are quenching the merciful and fostering the cruel in our natures. Of this objectionable character is the practice recently introduced into France of carrying up donkeys in balloons. The adventure is indeed no new one. It was performed by Mr. Green some twenty years ago. But the merit, or rather the demerit, of having turned it into one of the most popular shows in France, is due to M. Poitevin, who has lately been exciting the gaping admiration of thousands in Paris, by this fool-hardy, barbarous, and contemptible mode of aerostation. Early in July this year (1850), he ascended on horseback in a balloon from Champ de Mars, in the presence of upwards of 10,000 persons, who had paid for admission, and the President of the Republic was one of the spectators. The horse, a handsome dapple gray, had stout cloth placed round its body, and several straps, passed over the shoulders and loins, were united in rings, which were attached by cords to the network of the balloon. In this manner was the animal cruelly suspended in the air, having no resting-place for its feet, nor was there any thing to protect the rider, had he lost his balance or been thrown off. The feat having been more successful than could reasonably have been expected, Mr. Green proposed to amuse the inhabitants of London by a similar adventure. Some of the more humane of the English capital were shocked at the announcement; and the secretary of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made application on the 30th of July to the magistrates to put a stop to the ascent. A case of interference not having been made out to the satisfaction of the magistrates, Mr. Green next day started on his journey to the clouds mounted on a pony. It was put in the car – a plan more humane than that of M. Poitevin, who suspended his pony in the air. But the whole affair was a miserably poor one, and well fitted to bring all such experiments into contempt. The nag was not larger than an under-sized Newfoundland dog; and what made the thing more ridiculous still, the poor creature – which, by the way, had its eyes bandaged, and was strongly tied by cords to the network of the balloon – was so feeble that, on mounting it, Mr. Green had to sustain his own weight by a pile of sand bags placed on either side. This sham equestrian excursion through the air appears to have generally disappointed onlookers, and pony ascensions have not been attempted a second time in England. In France they have met with greater favor. They have been repeated by M. Poitevin and others in the presence of immense multitudes: and it should not be passed over without remark, as one proof among others of what the animals suffer, and, consequently, of the cruelty of the practice, that, in some of these instances, blood flowed from their ears and nostrils. That the practice is dangerous to the aeronaut as well as cruel to the animal, has been the judgment of all reflecting men from the first; and the late melancholy fate of Lieutenant Gale, an English, naval officer, who ascended from the Hippodrome of Vincennes, near Bordeaux, on Sabbath – a very unsuitable day, surely, for such exhibitions – the 8th of September last, mounted on a horse, which was suspended beneath the car of the balloon by girths passed under its body, reads a lesson to which it would be wise to listen. By the aid of several peasants who were in the fields, he effected his descent without any accident to himself or the horse; but, having unfastened the animal, he again rose into the air, and was afterward found dead in a field about a mile from the place where the balloon made its second descent. That this dreadful close of the aeronautic career of Mr. Gale, which he commenced only in 1848, will serve as a warning to this reckless class of adventurers, we hardly anticipate. That it will put a stop to such fool-hardy and hazardous exhibitions, by bringing them into disrepute with the idle multitude, is what we as little expect. So long as men are found sufficiently daring to run the risk, there will not be wanting crowds abundantly ready to pay down their money, and gaze upon the spectacle with a stupid admiration.

      It is a wretched result of the art of ballooning, if it can be turned to no better account than this. Can, then, nothing more important be brought out of it? Can it never be rendered subservient to the ordinary purposes of human life? The opinion almost universally prevalent among men, not excluding scientific men, is that it can not. Some aeronauts, indeed, assure us that the time is fast approaching when aerial transition will inevitably be placed as far before railroad and steam-boat transition as the latter are before the old-fashioned sail and horse-power modes. But the most of men place little faith in these flattering anticipations; they listen to or read them with as dogged a skepticism as they read or hear the celebrated vaticination of Bishop Wilkins, that it would be as common for man hereafter to call for his wings when about to make a journey, as it then was to call for his boots and spurs. They doubt whether, with all the characteristic marks of progress that distinguish the present age, balloons will ever become a safe, cheap, and expeditious means of traveling. Whether the aeronauts are most to be justified in their sanguine expectations, or the rest of mankind in their cautious incredulity, time alone will determine. Our judgment, we confess, strongly inclines to the side of the skeptics.

      Much is still desiderated, in order to the practicability of ballooning as a generally useful art. A new gas, at once cheap in its production, and of sufficient buoyancy, must be discovered. The gases at present employed for inflating balloons are either too expensive or too heavy. Hydrogen, which is almost fourteen times lighter than common air, is the lightest gas known, but the expense at which it is procured is an insuperable objection to its practical utility. To produce a quantity sufficient to raise the weight of a pound, four and a half pounds of iron or six of zinc, with equal quantities of sulphuric acid, would be required. Carbureted hydrogen or coal gas is much cheaper, and brings the cost of what may be necessary for experimental purposes – though this is by no means inconsiderable – within the compass of more ordinary means. But, as it is only about one half lighter than atmospheric air, it would require a machine of immense size to support any great weight; and the whole experience of ballooning proves the difficulty of managing a body of great magnitude. Another great desideratum in aerial navigation is a power of guiding the balloon according to a given direction – of propelling it through the atmosphere as steam-boats are propelled on the ocean. It has indeed been said that, as nature is very profuse in the variety of atmospherical currents within two miles above the level of the sea, we are not, in sailing through the air, driven to the necessity of attempting to go right against the wind, but have only to ascend or descend, as the case may be, to a current, which will waft the vessel to its desired destination. But were we even sure of always getting a favoring current, which, from the limited amount of observations made, is not yet established beyond a doubt, there is another desideratum – we are in want of an agent adapted for raising and lowering the balloon without any waste of its power, so as to get within the propitious current. Mr. Green's contrivance of the guide rope, is, as we have seen, not likely to answer СКАЧАТЬ