Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . I write the address and the word Balloon, and the thing is done. I then throw it over the edge,and it amuses me to see the card with its long red tail go tum-bling slowly and gracefully down to the ground. On this occasionI threw out only two cards, and they both reached their destina-tion in due course. At the barometric pressure was246, the altitude being 5,250 ft. above the sea. We had there-fore fallen about 1,300 ft. in six minutes, but we
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . I write the address and the word Balloon, and the thing is done. I then throw it over the edge,and it amuses me to see the card with its long red tail go tum-bling slowly and gracefully down to the ground. On this occasionI threw out only two cards, and they both reached their destina-tion in due course. At the barometric pressure was246, the altitude being 5,250 ft. above the sea. We had there-fore fallen about 1,300 ft. in six minutes, but we were still higherthan at The Hornisgrinde was our landmark, and seemed BALLOONING AS A SPOKT. 235 to be in the same direction as before; we heard the same soundsfrom below, and concluded that we were still hovering over thetown. The balloonist is generally described as rushing furiouslythrough the air; but this was hardly the case with us; thereseemed to be something very circumspect about our there was to be nothing to occupy the mind, our thoughtsgravitated in the direction of caring for the body, and an interval. Fig. 144.—Building a pontoon over the Spree. was therefore devoted to refreshment. Suddenly our leader saidvery decidedly that we must land. We looked at the barometer—it was just before 10 oclock—and saw that we were alreadydescending very rapidly. I couldnt understand it; nobody hadtouched the valve rope. Still, the pointer on the aneroid wasturning round almost as fast as a seconds hand. Each littledivision on the aneroid meant a fall of 36 ft. We held out afeather at the end of a fishing-rod, but it floated over our heads,and our scraps of paper disappeared at once. It was quite 236 AIKSHIPS PAST AND PEE SENT. evident that we were going at a breakneck speed to theground. We threw out some of our precious ballast, but this did nogood. We came down faster than the sand, and now there wereonly five sacks of ballast left, each weighing 66 l
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpubl, booksubjectaeronautics
