The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-09-11 00:00:00

THE DESCENT.

. . Frequently in the course of the voyage Mr.
Wright, our director, threw out scraps of paper to
show by their ascent or descent whether the machine
was falling or. rising. Quite as frequently Captain
Cheyne gave the information from the aneroid baro-
meter. It was time to pack up instruments, to put
away note-books; and to prepare fqr the almost inevit-
able bump. The seats were unshipped, and we passen-
gers were directed to crouch down, to seize the ropes,
and whatever we did to "hold on by the balloon."
Although the wind was not strong, there was quite
sufficient power left overhead to cause a consider-
able drag. Our guardian spied him carefully
over the country, and right grieved was he no
park to see, but instead thereof a continuous succes-
sion of fields of standing corn broken only by un-
inviting pools. Still we would have accepted the
invitation, distinctly audible, from the village of
Dunmow—sacred to connubial harmony—to "come
down here," had we not drifted too dangerously near
a railway telegraph line and a wood to risk possible
entanglement with the wire or in the trees. Ballast
was thrown out, and the car sprang up to a height
of 2,000 feet. Barely five minutes remained for
the descent. Our charioteer, in the exercise of his
judgment, was reluctant to weaken his power by
pulling the valve-rope and letting off, so to speak,
his steam. But it must be done, or the medal
according to time test would be lost. Flap went
the valve at the crown of the balloon and out,
of course, rushed a volume of gas. Still she scarcely
descended. Flap again; and this time she began a
rapid downward course, which the pouring out of bag
after bag of ballast was barely sufficient to check.
From 2,000 feet a drop of 700 was made in one minute
and a quarter, and still the dry sand ballast flew up-
wards into our eyes, showing that the car was not yet
light enough. Nearly, if not quite, all our ballast
was gone, as we rushed at railway speed towards an
inviting field of clover. Out went the grapnel, a
heavy iron tripod attached to the car by a long
rope. As it struck the earth the balloon was
sensibly relieved, but before the grapnel fastened
we came to the earth with a most vile and stunning
bump that shook every bone in one's skin, and
turned the car on edge. She rose again like an Owl
refreshed, and rushed straight at an hedgerow just
beyond which Mr. Wright discovered to his horror a
double line of telegraph wire. "I must cut the rope,
or I shall cut the wire," said he. The Owl swung
over the wire, and was halfway across the highway
when the aeronaut, standing at the edge of the car
bareheaded—for he and I had lost our hats at the
bump--drew a large clasp knife and seNered the strong
grapnel rope, leaving one end hanging over the wires.
This released the Owl flew madly on half-way
through a field of standing barley, and there treated
us to another bump, 'perceptibly less in degree than
the other one, but still decidedly palpable. Our con-
ductor, sticking hard to the valve-rope, crippled her con-
siderably, and at the next bump, instead of raising us
agiin as before, our former servant, now our dreaded
master, flapped her huge half-vacant canvas, and
drew over the car to such an angle that we were
perforced compelled to assume the horizontal and to
travel some little distance in layers two deep, at the
imminent risk of simultaneous and wholesale decapi-
tation should thd upper edge come down on us.
Captain Cheyne lay prone upon my left side, while
my right arm, stretched right out of the car and hold-
ing the ropes was ploughing the field of barley at no
inconsiderable risk of fracture. Mr. Wright, though
aerial in flight, is decidedly material in a drag, as our
Transatlantic friend who was under him found out.
The burden was in fact, nearly greater than he
could bear, but bear it he must and did until
we got the Owl pulled up. In the midst of
our wild career we were not so entirely lost to
all the instincts of self-preservation as to refrain from
calling out for help. Luckily two or three harvesters,
bronzed, shaggy Essex men, were within hail, and,
seeing our crippled condition, ran up, and on our
direction seized the ropes. More men and boys came
and gave aid until sufficient hands were laid on to
allow us one by one to leave the car. Scarcely had
we recovered our legs and begun to make inquiries
than we found ourselves surrounded by friends,
strangers though they were. .. . . We found
we had landed at Little Bardfield, eleven miles
north-west of Braintree railway station, and that
there was no train after eight o'clock. Fortunately
at Great Bardfield, a mile and a half away, was a,
• telegraph station, whence we were able to de-
spatch the news of our arrival to the head-
quarters of the Balloon Society. We had re-
ceived our first bump at 6.53, and had then on a rough
estimate travelled forty-eight miles in one hour and
thirty-eight minutes, the extra eight minutes over the
hour and a half prescribed by the society being due to
the necessity for reasceneling to escape the telegraph
wires at Dunmow. A walk in the gloaming to Little
Bardfield with our kind receivers found us provided
there by the same generous people with vehicles to
convey us to Great Bardfield to an excellent inn. We
learnt, soon after landing, that two other balloons
had passed over a quarter of an hour before us,
and had gone further north, clearly proving that
three at least had been driven by the prevailing north-
easterly wind. The strange spectacle of two balloons
passing in succession and one alighting awakened.
up the villagers to a state of animation altogether un-
precedented; and will doubtless form a recollection to
be dwelt upon when the merest youth who assisted
reaches the authoritative rank of oldest inhabitant.
Although a sharp lookout was kept during the whole
voyage, no view whatever was obtained horn our car
of any of the half-dozen rivals that should have
ascended about the same time. Little perhaps was
gained in the way of establishing the theory of varying
currents, but Captain Cheyne was able to support his
project of Polar exploration by the unquestionalile
fact that a balloon could in one hour travel further
without any effort on the part of the passengers than
sledges could be dragged over icli-floes by twenty-eight
days of laborious exertion. • - • -