In the year 1782, Mr. Cavallo made the first experiments with hydrogen gas to raise bodies in the air. He first tried bladders; but not succeeding, he used China paper, in which also failing, he was under the necessity of being satisfied with soap-bubbles, which were the first kind of inflammable air-balloons that were ever made. For balloons formed on a large scale, and of rarefied air, we must direct our attention to France, where the two brothers, Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, paper manufacturers at Annonay, about thirty-six miles from Lyons, distinguished themselves by exhibiting the first of those ærostatic machines which have since excited so much attention and astonishment. The first idea of such a machine was suggested to them by the natural ascent of the smoke and clouds of the atmosphere, and the first experiment was made at Avignon, by Stephen, towards the middle of November, 1782. Having prepared a bag of fine silk in the shape of a parallelpiped and in the capacity of about forty cubic feet, he applied to its aperture burning paper, which rarefied the air, and caused it to ascend rapidly. Other experiments, with still greater success, soon followed, and at length inflammable air, or hydrogen gas, was used, to the complete satisfaction of the experimenters. From this time, numerous balloons were sent up; but the first person who made an ascension was M. Pilatre de Rosier, from a garden in the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, Paris. Though several experiments on the ascensive power of balloons had been made in England, during the course of the year after their discovery, the first ærial voyage, which was undertaken by Vincent Lunardi, an Italian, did not take place till September, 1784. His balloon was thirty-three feet in diameter, and shaped like a pear. It was made of oiled silk, with alternate stripes of blue and red, having the car suspended from a hoop below the balloon, by forty-five cords.