Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . officer would have been suffocatedin this way if he had not received timely help from hisfriends. Increased interest continued to be taken in the sport, andventuresome ladies occasionally mounted the car. On June 4th,1784, at Lyons, Madame Thible ascended in a free balloon in thepresence of King Gustavus III. of Sweden. The journey lasted 16 AIRSHIPS PAST AND PRESENT. three-quarters of an hour, and a height of 9,000 ft. was it soon became a
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . officer would have been suffocatedin this way if he had not received timely help from hisfriends. Increased interest continued to be taken in the sport, andventuresome ladies occasionally mounted the car. On June 4th,1784, at Lyons, Madame Thible ascended in a free balloon in thepresence of King Gustavus III. of Sweden. The journey lasted 16 AIRSHIPS PAST AND PRESENT. three-quarters of an hour, and a height of 9,000 ft. was it soon became apparent that great disadvantages attachedto balloons of the hot-air type, and the danger of fire was great,both before and after the start. Fire-extinguishing contrivanceswere always at hand during the filling operations, and notwith-standing this, more than one balloon was completely destroyedby the flames. On landing there was always trouble owing tothe fact that the body of the balloon fell on the pan, which wasoften still glowing hot. The danger both to person and propertywhich arose from the use of hot air made any extended use of. Fig. 9.—A successful landing. this type of balloon out of the question. It was further impos-sible to carry any large amount of combustible on the journey,and this limited the distance that could be travelled. Themethod originally used by Montgolfier of burning a mixture ofstraw and wool was found to be the best, as it produced a brightand lively flame without much smoke. Saussure, the well-knownphysicist, had proposed to use alder wood in place of straw. Inorder to study the question carefully and to note the necessaryconditions he had remained on the car of one of Montgolfiersballoons for eighteen minutes during the preliminary inflation,in spite of the great heat. He proved thereby that the hottestair at the top is free from oxygen, but contains great quantitiesof the gases of combustion and water vapour. He also showed MONTGOLFIEKES, CHAEL
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpubl, booksubjectaeronautics
