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The frenchmen who went up In a thunderstorm

This fantastic bit of gallantry was no sooner achieved than the first balloon to be filled with hydrogen carried up two other Frenchmen a height of 14,000 feet, weathering a thunderstorm and travelling thirty miles. Ascent followed ascent after this, and the public imagination was so fired that plans were soon in progress for building balloons to reach the moon ! Hydrogen now took the place of the furnace in the balloon. This light gas, of which 14 cubic feet lift one pound, was the only possible agent for continuous experiments; without it ballooning would soon have come to an end. It came to the use of man before the balloon, yet its possibilities as a lifting force were illustrated by a puff of smoke in a paper-maker’s house. Ballooning came from smoke; the aeroplane propeller came from the boomerang.

For over a century balloons shared the sky with the birds, with the decided difference that, while birds fly wherever they will, balloons were always the sport of any wind that blew′. They could not be steered. When near the ground their course might be retarded, and in some respects directed, by a long rope with an anchor attached; but such a rope might drag a man up into the air, whisk a cow off its legs, pull a chimney off a roof, or bring down part of a church steeple.