While the _Giant_ was the largest balloon hitherto constructed, it broke no records either for speed attained or distance travelled, and much more notable performances in this respect had been made before its time and have been made since. Thus, one of Coxwell's balloons traveled from Berlin in the direction of Dantzig, covering the distance of one hundred and seventy miles in three hours. This was in 1849; and in the same year M. Arban crossed the Alps from Marseilles to Turin, covering the distance of four hundred miles in eight hours. In July, 1859, the American aeronaut, John Wise, sailed from St. Louis, Missouri, to Henderson, in New York State, in nineteen hours, travelling eight hundred and fifty miles at the rate of forty-six miles an hour. This was the longest voyage ever made until the time of the balloon-races started from the Paris Exposition, in 1900. On this occasion Conte de la Vaux, starting from Paris, remained in the air thirty-five hours and forty-five minutes, landing at Korosticheff, in Russia, 1193 miles from the starting-point, thus breaking all previous records. EARLY WAR-BALLOONS AND DIRIGIBLE BALLOONS Despite the fact that the "aviators"--the aeronauts whose efforts were directed to flight by mechanical means in imitation of birds, or by the use of what are now called aeroplanes--were in the field centuries before the balloon was invented, from the time of the first Montgolfier balloon until very recently, the balloonists had shown their rivals a clean pair of heels in practical results. A dirigible, man-carrying balloon that can be guided under favorable conditions, and can maintain itself in the air for any considerable length of time, was an accomplished fact at least five years before the practical aeroplane flying-machine. Yet the majority of scientists had become convinced several years before their convictions were verified by actual demonstration, that some type of mechanical flying-machine--a machine that is heavier than the atmosphere and that maintains itself by some mechanical means--was the only one likely to solve the question of aerial flight. Yet thus far balloons have rendered more actual service to man than flying-machines. It will be recalled that balloons were used for making military observations during the French Revolution; and they were used for similar purposes in several of the Continental wars during the first half of the nineteenth century. After that time, however, interest in their use for this purpose flagged somewhat until the time of the Crimean War, when their usefulness was again demonstrated, as it was in the American Civil War which followed shortly after.