The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-06 00:00:00

ASCENT OF NADAR'S BALLOON.

Aletter dated Paris, Sunday night, says :—Science
has run a match to-day against sport, and the
former, " steered" by M. Nadar, has won easily.

The event came off on the Champ de Mars, from which
densely-crowded plain Le Geant ascended at five
o'clock. Before speaking of the balloon I must say
a few words of M. Nadar, whose photographic esta-
blishment ail your readers whn visit Paris, and
especially those who go to the Grand Hotel, will
certainly know. M. Nadar has got that which Lord
Melbourne used to say " would make any one a bore
if it did not ruin him outright"—an idea. He be-

lieves that, in a time not far distant, men will moun

the air on "screws'' attached to small umbrellas,
and sail away through the sky, rather shaming the
birds. All that is wanting is a beginning ; to get

that beginning money is required ; to get that money
M. Nadar has built the largest balloon on record ;
intends to exhibit it throughout the world, and,
with the proceeds of the exhibition, the modern
Icarus means to build the screw balloon, which is.to
carry out his idea.. Do you smile ? So men smiled
at gas, at railways, at electric telegraphs. The bal-
loon—that is the inflated globe—seems to me to be
much like other balloons, only larger. There are
in it, for instance, 20,000 yards of silk, which cost
£6,500 ; but the car is curious and ingenious. It
is of wicker work—a square-shaped basket, about
20 feet high, and 15 feet long, by 12 wide. It con-
tains two storeys ; a rez dechausee—stop! can there
be such a thing in the air ?—let us say a ground
floor and a terrace. The ground floor is divided
into a " captain's cabin," a washing room, four
cabins, with separate berths, a printing office, and a
photographic studio, with dark chamber. " They are
not large," remark sceptical readers ; but there is
space for what is required—space to sleep, space to
photograph. The cabins are fitted with air beds,
suspended on cords ; nothing lighter, nothing more
comfortable. The " terrace" has glasses of great
power. The outside of this quaint aerial craft
is decked like Robinson Crusoe's hut—which,
indeed, it resembles in many things—with
guns, wheels to carry off the car when it lands, axes
to cut its way through the forest in which it may
fall, and tubes, which equally act as " buffers" while
landing or as life-buoys if the course of the balloon
should change elements. To-day, before starting,
the outside was also embellished with legs of mut-
ton, chickens, vegetables, and bouquets. Now I
must trouble you with a few statistics—only a few
—for I dis:ike theta as much as your readers. The
balloon when inflated was exactly fourteen yards
lower then the Tower of Notre Dame. There are
two balloons, one within the other. The gas in-
flated amounts to 6,098 cubic metres, and it is cal-
culated to support a weight of from three to three
tons and a half. The walk from the Place de la
Concorde, by the Avenue de la Motte Picquet, to
the Champ de Mars, was a curious scene. I can
only compare it to the walk from Doncaster to the
Town Moor on a very great Leger day. The Geant
in theon h
centrete of anenclosure
twowas toweringother
ground
within
in
face of the cavalry barracks. To enter the outer
circle you paid one franc,
to the second two francs,
and then came the innermost
helpouli ling--the
—h
police, science—to
ywchoiuclhd
possibly money would
tadtemmiptilennorf
me pause for a minute, and abusethiet
Insolent to foreigners, they are tyrannical to their
are never in the way w
it; and
French here
police.
let
own countrymen ;
are wanted, always in the way when theyhaerne they
a disgrace to a free country, and
a in
iaug, b;ngto
for one who has over been brought Contact„ ,swictkh
the police of any other civilised capital.
" Can I pass ?" asked a French
gentleman
civilly—nay, meekly—of a hero in
ecroeenkre.d ' very
hat, ya
sword, and his moustache a r E
"
you comfortable there ?" thundered out the official. Are
"Pas mai," replied the gentleman. "Then stay
there, and be contented," shrieked the police -
gen-
tleman. "If the public are unreasonable, -
we shall
interfere." "They are beasts, the police," later
observed an elderly lady, who had asked her way
out of the ground, and I beg to endorse her
opinion. Of course the ground was kept
by soldiers; first infantry, but later a troop of
dragoons and a picket of Spahis took possession
of the Champ de Mars, and held it against all
eo
At four o'clock the balloon was fully in-
flated.ground presented a curious sight :
rnr-e s.
The
without
to
earth by a company
the
o enclosure;m a
thousandswithin
,the
ef
vast people
globe
held
" car"—or
et rather
u"castle"—
f
of engineers ; the
' crowded with curious visitors;
Paris standing round admiring with that lazy rap-
ture peculiarbto " good society," which cannot be
"I*:
amused, and scorns to be astonished—mixed with
them the •
- science and literature of the metropolis;
the Annamite
Embassy, a swarm of Spahis, some
Turcos, and a few Turks. When the engineers
moved the vast
inflated monster towards the car,
excitement w 95 intense. When they let it slowly