Part 15

ASCENT, OVER FIVE MILES HIGH, BY GREEN AND RUSH.

I have before me a mass of leading articles and newspaper cuttings alluding to the ascent of Messrs. Jovis and Mallet, in which honourable mention is made of the lofty explorations by Robertson and L’Hoest, Gay-Lussac, Bixio, and Barral, together with Mr. Glaisher’s and my own, but Green’s with Rush are invariably omitted, and yet these were quite as important, while the second was higher than that made by the intrepid French balloonists, and, so far as physical results go, the Englishmen do not appear to have fainted or been much troubled.

It is of immense importance to note this, as there can be no doubt that a certain zone exists, in entering which some persons are more susceptible than others to lessened atmospheric pressure, and here they begin to feel the bad effects, which, by the way may come on without warning, just as it is with Alpine travellers, although there are marked distinctions between the two, but we cannot enter upon that in detail in this chapter.

This trip, by Green, was one of those which was designed to add a fraction of knowledge to the already existing stores of science. This fact is sufficient, even according to those who are not great admirers of ballooning, to warrant its encouragement when taken in hand by those who do not affect to be mere aëronautic performers, embarking in aërostatic pursuits for sensational objects, or with the vain and delusive idea, that it is not dangerous, and that it is a money-making concern.

Mr. Rush, assisted by the knowledge of his coadjutor, threw a character of deep interest over the whole subject of aërostation, and this trip, though lost sight of, at the present moment, is well worthy of re-production, serving as it does, two ends; firstly, to call attention to the fact, that English aëronauts seem to get more toughened by acclimatization to rarified air than Frenchmen, and secondly, that they do such work with less ado, and with equal, perhaps a little more, methodical foresight and precision, than our more dashing and mercurial neighbours.

It was on the 10th of September (what a number of exceptionable journeys were made in this month!) that the highest ascent which had been made up to that date, came off from the far-famed Vauxhall Gardens.

The proprietors made arrangements with Mr. Rush for it to take place in the afternoon, that gentleman engaging the car for the occasion.

The time allowed for preparation was limited. The first object to be gained was that of diminishing the weight of the apparatus to as low a point as due regard to their personal safety would admit.

A small car was substituted for that commonly used. At five o’clock in the afternoon, Green ascertained the power of the gas with which the “Nassau” balloon was charged, the tranquil state of the weather rendered this an easy operation.

On examination, Green found that the whole weight of the balloon and its appendages was 4,084 pounds thus constituted:

Balloon, netting and car 700 pounds. Ballast 1,500 ” Mr. Rush 145 ” Mr. Green 145 ” Light, grapnel and rope 52 ” Cloaks and barometers, &c. 30 ” Twenty-seven half-hundredweights slung round the hoop 1,512 ” ------ Total 4,084 ” ======

Please to note that Green then opened the upper valve, and discharged a quantity of gas equal to the power of the twenty-seven half-hundredweights, which were then removed from the hoop.

Why, you will ask, was this gas wasted, or put into the balloon? I suppose for the sake of appearances and symmetrical distention, but had Rush not been paymaster, it would most assuredly never have entered.

The departure took place with an ascending power of 112 pounds--very considerable indeed.

Barometer stood at 30·50 just before leaving, and thermometer at 60°; before seven minutes had elapsed, they had fallen, the former to 20, and the latter to 36°, equal to 11,000 feet or two miles.

Had it not been for the miserable aspect the balloon would have presented, more gas would have been let off equal to an additional 1,000 pounds, and then not more than 500 pounds of sand need have been shipped.

At 11,000 feet they were driven south, after going north-east.

Green was continually casting out ballast; on attaining 16,000 feet--three miles--they entered a current blowing at the estimated speed of sixty miles an hour, though they never stated, more’s the pity, how under such a rocket-like rush upwards, they found time to determine that this wonderful current existed.

The only inconvenience (this is noteworthy) Mr. Rush sustained, arose from the constant escape of gas from the rapid ascent.

Mr. Green suffered severely from the cold in his hands and feet.

They were now exposed to the influence of roaring winds, but from what I can make out, it was only the effect of quick vertical ascent; here the aëronaut, owing to the exertion he had to undergo, found it a matter of the utmost difficulty to fetch his breath.

The greatest altitude reached was 27,146 feet, indicating an elevation from the earth of 5 miles and 746 feet, the barometer, at this point having fallen from 30·50 to 11, and the thermometer from 61° to 5° or 27° below the freezing point.

Ballast had been reduced to something under seventy pounds, which Green resolved on preserving, and the result of their descent, which was never minutely entered into, proved the propriety of this reservation.

In the descent, they discovered something which very much bore the appearance and consistency of snow. Mr. Rush’s attention was called to it, but after consideration they were inclined to think that the substance was not snow, but the dew and moisture congealed by the cold.

It would be instructive to know how Captain Jovis, who must have had the night dew on his balloon at the early inflation in Paris, got on in this respect. His idea was that the sun would dry the moisture, but I was under the impression that there would scarcely be time for a globular shaped machine to get dry all round during the inflation. However, they may, like Green, have encountered a snow storm without there being, as indeed was unlikely, any damp clouds overhead at that elevation; what I mean is, if the balloon itself shed and shook off innumerable particles of frozen moisture, there can be no wonder that such was noticed and mistaken for a fall of snow.

After Rush and Green had hovered over Lewes in Sussex, a descent was effected near Southover; there was not much hovering _I should say_.

In this ascent they had the double advantage of witnessing the setting sun (prior to their quitting the earth) and on their reaching 12,500 feet of being once more within the sun’s rays.

Another important consideration bearing upon this chapter is the celerity with which balloons make their ascent.

It is obvious that the efficient power of ascension, or the excess of the whole buoyant force above the absolute weight of the apparatus, would, by acting constantly, produce always an accelerated motion. But this is very soon checked, and a uniform progress maintained by the increasing resistance which the huge mass must encounter in its passage through the air.

The velocity which a balloon would gain from unobstructed acceleration must, from the theory of dynamics, be to that which a falling body acquires in the same time as the efficient buoyancy is to the aggregate weight of the apparatus and of the contained fluid. Thus, if a balloon were to rise with a force equal to the eighth part of its compound weight, the celerity resulting from a constant acceleration would be expressed by multiplying four feet into the number of seconds elapsed since it was launched into the air. Its advance, however, being opposed, the balloon though still affected with partial oscillations, the final velocity is effected in perhaps little more than double the time required without such obstruction.

This final velocity, or the velocity at which the ascent becomes uniform, the resistance from the air being then equal to the efficient buoyancy of the balloon, is easily calculated.

The resistance a circle encounters in moving through any fluid in the direction perpendicular to its plane, is measured by the weight of a column of that fluid, having the circle for its base, and an altitude equal to the height from which a heavy body in falling would acquire the given celerity.

Near the level of the sea, and at the mean temperature, a column of atmospheric air seventeen feet high, and incumbent on a circle of one foot in diameter, weighs a pound avoirdupois, which is, therefore, the resistance that a circle would suffer if carried forwards with the celerity of thirty-three feet each second.

According to the same theory, however, which we owe to the sagacity of Newton, the resistance of a sphere is just the half of that of its generating circle, and consequently a velocity of forty-six and two-fifths feet in a second through the air would in ordinary cases create a resistance of one pound to a ball of one foot in diameter.

In other circumstances, the quantity of resistance must be proportional to the square of velocities, and of the diameters. Whence, if the buoyant power were always the same, the velocity of the ascent of a balloon would be inversely as its diameter.

I introduce these few observations, which are by a much higher authority than my own, because it occurred to me that my own remarks might be considered too homely for some of those who may read these lines, but as I have merely aimed at affording amusement with a moderate portion of instruction, and do not write for scientific men, but for general readers, I shall hope to gradually progress in this treatment in a subsequent volume.

A JUMP OUT OF THE CAR IN AMERICA.

Among the numerous newspaper reports which are on my table, are several relative to what, in plain unvarnished English, we should describe as a parachute descent. But the one I allude to was not like Cocking’s, Garnerin’s, Le Turr’s, or Hampton’s, it had a size and peculiarity worth notice.

This American parachute had a very small and possibly inferior covering; it was hardly equal to the man who is sketched with herculean proportions, and required, one would say, a more efficient support, especially as he indulged in no car or wicker protection, but hung earthwards with his hands grasping the hoop.

The descent is described as successful, it was made from a balloon on August 9th, at Rockaway, New York State, U.S.A.

The aëronaut’s name was Thomas S. Baldwin, and he first ascended in his balloon the “City of Quincy,” which rose to a height of over a 1,000 feet, when he grasped the parachute and cut himself adrift from the balloon.

The manœuvre shows a want of aëronautic common sense which the newspaper description of “jumping out of the car” tends to intensify.

The time of his descent was one minute and twenty-four seconds.

It is said, that to the spectators below, a white cloud seemed to fall. For a distance of seventy-five feet the parachute gave no signs of expansion, and it was feared that another death would be added to the roll of those who have made this perilous experiment. Then the umbrella-like mass spread and hung like a white dome over the aëronaut’s head.

It soon rolled in circles with a slight rocking and swaying motion from side to side, until at length Mr. Thomas S. Baldwin was landed, or rather watered, to a depth of only a few feet, apparently none the worse after a renewed acquaintance with his mother earth.

AN ENGLISHMAN’S PARACHUTE DESCENT IN 1839.

Mr. John Hampton, with whom I first ascended, came down three times in a newly constructed apparatus which was in many respects superior to the American’s. The upper part of Hampton’s parachute was, in all respects, in the form of an umbrella, having whalebone ribs, and a curtain besides, below the ribs, like the sunshades patronized by the ladies not long since.

Mr. Hampton determined, in the summer of 1839, to outstrip all competition by descending, after leaving the Montpelier Gardens, at Cheltenham, by stealth, in his balloon “Albion.” The fate of Mr. Cocking, and the censure which the proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens incurred, induced the owner of the Montpelier Gardens to withhold his consent to the experiment, but in order to carry out Mr. Hampton’s firm resolve and to gratify the curiosity of an immense number of spectators that were assembled upon that occasion, the manager agreed that the balloon and parachute should be exhibited, but on no account should ascend higher than sixty feet from the earth for fear of accident.

When Mr. Hampton had reached this altitude, he severed the rope which held his balloon, and the astonished spectators then beheld the intrepid aëronaut majestically sailing towards the clouds previous to his separation.

At two miles from the earth (let us say, rather, at a fair elevation), he determined upon cutting away; but previously, he opened his parachute by means of a small block and rope before he separated it from the balloon, and by adopting that plan made an easy and safe descent at Copperley.

His second attempt was from Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea, when he came down in fine style, and was conducted back to the Gardens, accompanied by an immense concourse of people, who were not sparing in their approbation of his daring exploit.

The third experiment was made from Bayswater, but the parachute caught on one of the trees in Kensington Gardens, and Mr. Hampton was thereby injured, but soon recovered.

He managed to split his balloon with a thin cord before casting loose, and altogether his plans were unique.

CHANNEL BALLOONING.

During the past six years some of our more daring aëronauts have embarked in a succession of voyages from Dover and Hythe to France and Flushing, with the idea, it would seem, of rivalling the memorable trip made by Mr. C. Green in company with Messrs. Holland and Monck Mason, who journeyed from Vauxhall Gardens, in the year 1836, to the Duchy of Nassau.

A recent ascent by Mr. Morton, who is called the Birmingham Aëronaut, has had newspaper laudation, but aëronautically speaking, it does not surpass or equal Mr. Joseph Simmonds’ journeys in length and risky surroundings, nor General Brine’s, and Mr. Dale’s performance, nor the late Colonel Burnaby’s ascent from Dover, which extended beyond Dieppe, and was made in Mr. Thomas Wright’s balloon. Mr. Morton’s trip is not equal to the preceding, though unexpectedly good in its way.

The laboured efforts and fatal results of some of the later attempts to cross over do not raise the estimation in which ballooning is held. They would have been better left alone. Many of the mishaps, and they have been frequent, point to perils which the old masters neither saw or complained about, whereas our modern heroes ought to be more expert.

We have also lately had a touch or two of what may be correctly styled _Bogus Ballooning_. I refer to more than one report about a cross-Channel run, which never took place, as I have ascertained after ample enquiry. However I am well aware that the press cannot always escape this sort of imposition being practised upon reporters who are not proof against a hoax. I remember that when Henson’s flying machine was completed, a morning newspaper of high standing contained thrilling details of a first flight, which was merely a flight of fancy after all, as the ponderous mass never budged an inch.

In a later volume of my experiences I shall have to notice, on arriving at the proper date, the impediments and drawbacks to the advancement of ballooning.

It is known to those who admire and aim at promoting this subject that a few would-be inventors and so-called scientific men, who trade and traffic in this and other cognate arts actually retard instead of furthering aërostatics, they hold out false hopes, hoist false colours, and deceive the very elect, the result being that aërostation is at a stand still, or, in fact, loses _caste_ to some extent.

Let us trust that these hints will lead to a new and brighter era, when military and meteorological ballooning will be further applied to useful objects, and that both combined, aided by sincere and competent abettors, will bring about the solution of aërial navigation.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

Some German words and phrases that are obviously misspelled have been retained as printed.

On page 31, it appears that a word is possibly missing in the sentence beginning ‘Somewhat lower down, at a hard where boats could be pulled up...’

On page 72, ‘1320 feet per second’ should be ‘1320 feet per minute.’