The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 1, December, 1850 — John Shaqi
The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 1, December, 1850Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 1, December, 1850
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
The work on Aerostation, by Mr. Green, recently published in
Philadelphia, has been much noticed in Europe, where--particularly in
France--the subject has attracted large attention, in consequence of the
death of Gale, (formerly a player at our Bowery Theater,) near Bordeaux,
and the recent wicked and ridiculous ascents with horses, ostriches, &c.
from the Hippodrome in Paris, and some experiments in ballooning at
Madrid. In an interesting paper in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, for the
fifteenth of October, we have an account of numerous theories,
experiments, and accidents, constituting an entertaining _resumé_ of the
whole matter. Few instances of intrepidity, danger, and escape, excite
livelier emotion than the crossing from England to France by Blanchard,
and Dr. Jeffries, an American, on the seventh of January, 1785. When, by
the loss of gas, the balloon descended rapidly over the channel, and
approached near the surface of the sea, after everything had been thrown
out, even to their clothes, Jeffries offered to leap into the sea, and
by thus lightening the balloon further, afford Blanchard a chance of
safety. "We must both be lost as the case is," said he; "if you think
your preservation is possible, I am ready to sacrifice my life." The
French military ascents are particularly described. Companies of
aeronauts were formed and trained, and Bonaparte took one of them with
him to Egypt, but the British captured all the apparatus for the
generation of gas. The First Consul caused ascents in picturesque
balloons to be made on occasions of public rejoicing for victories, in
order to strike the imaginations of the Egyptians, and an aerostatic
academy was established near Paris. The writer mentions that Lieutenant
Gale, like poor Sam Patch, so famous for a similar absurdity, and for a
similar and not less miserable end, had drank too much brandy for
self-possession in a dangerous predicament. He thinks that the problem
of the direction or government of balloons cannot possibly be solved
with the mechanical means which science now commands; and that, as they
may be usefully employed for the study of the great physical laws of the
globe, all experiments should be restricted to the object of advancing
science. He dwells on what might be accomplished toward ascertaining the
true laws of the decrease of temperature in the elevated regions of the
air, of the decrease of density of the atmosphere, of the decrease of
humidity according to atmospheric heights, and of the celerity of sound.
After all the experiments, and all that has been written upon the
subject, we are confident that the direction of a balloon is quite
impossible, except by a process which we have never yet seen suggested;
that is, by the rapid decomposition of the air in its way, so that a
tube extended in the direction in which it is desired to move, shall
open continually a vacuum into which the pressure of the common
atmosphere shall impel the carriage.
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