The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-22 00:00:00

BALLOONS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE BUN.
&Bre-Seeing in your last evenings journal a letter
from a correspondent, who signs his communication
"Nauticus," in relation to conveying intelligence by
means of " balloons," I beg to observe that some
years since I tried the experiment of substituting
calico for silk in the making of aerostatic machines
on a small scale, intending, if the experiment had
justified such a conclusion, to have built a large
balloon of 30,000 feet capacity, using the material
of your correspondent's suggestion, instead of the
much more expensive article of silk—but Byron says,
"experience is the chief philosopher"—and the result
of that experience was the fact that there is as much
superiority on the side of the silk as there is difference
in price between the two materials, the nature of
the fibre constituting the calico, however tough and
wiry in wear previous to varnishing, is apt to become
brittle and crack at the least exposure to atmospheric
air soon after it is varnished; the well
known difference between animal and vegetable
substances may and does in a great measure
account for this. Then again all calicoes and linens
are subject more or less to a sort of dressing in the
manufacture—one object is, and that the greatest, to
induce the buyers of the article to believe they have
got a stout article for their money—" a great bar-
gain " of course—while, in reality, the preparation
used in the manufacture has a deteriorating tendency in
regard to wear, so in the same respect with silk of all
descriptions, down to the narrowest ribend. Science
is ransacked and exhausted in order to produce an
article that shall sell with the public, in the depraved
view and intense desire to "buy bargains," which in
the long run, by the bye, are no bargains at all. I
do not blame the manufacturers so much for this—their
customers are continually harping and carping for
the low priced commodities, and this is now prevalent
from the most respectable establishments down to
what our facetious friend Punch terms "Nebuchad-
nezzar Long Noses and Son." To return to the gar-
ment of silk, it is a well .known fact that every
pound sent out from the manufacturer to the re-
tailer contains from four to five ounces of
gum and drug, such an article handles like substance
in the hands of the buyer ; deprived of its dressing
such a substance becomes a shadow. In the early
days of a.eroetation Mr. Sadler, who may be termed
the father of the English aeronauts (that highly ac-
complished gentleman first ascended at Oxford, in the
year 1784), built his first balloon with silk as made
for general use, and even in that day deception was
at work to produce en artificial substance. Mr. S.
soon concluded in his own mind that the next balloon
he built should be of silk free from all this injurious
and superfious weight of gum and drug ; his keen
perception saw that a chemical action was produced
between the letter and the sulphur, carbon, ammonia,
and other impurities, which (let the purifying pro-
cess be as carefully attended to as possible, an acre-
mut is sure to get a portion (f) produces a sort of
aotarnist warftre, and inevitably ends in the annihi-
lation of all the strength in the material the balloon
is composed of. Aeron hats, by pawing an extra price,
get a silk made free from the deleterious ingredients
above alluded to. There is a small portion of the
pub ic, loalngst whom are our friends the lynx-eyed
Qeakers, who prefer paying an additional price in
order to poznass what in the tra le is termed " nVu-
ral sof'," 1. e, the silk free from "G. and D.,"
and there this small portion of the public
display superior wisdom, inasmuch as they
realise, the sayings of olden days, so little thought of
now, that the best is cheapest in the end and this
carries me back to your correspondent "Nauticus,"
who I do hope will take these observations all in good
part, for in the strictest sense of that interpretation
they are intended ; still theory is one thing and prac-
tice another. know many nautical gentlemen in
different parts of the country who amuse themselves
with experimental small paper balloons, sorne of whom
have sail to me, " Why don't you use calico or linen
for your balloon ?—it is much cheaper." There it is
—the case lies in a nutshell ; in the absence of prac-
tical experience those gentlemen imagine calico or
linen would answer the purpose; but, on the other
band, practical experience gives an unanswerable
denial to their views Your correspondent supposes
the calico balloon would stand some good thumps and
bumps on the icebergs—indeed but little, very little,
of that ; the chances are that the first tins the young
lady embraced the- cold rough- lips of Mester John
Iceberg—to use an old aeronautical phrase—she would
go to rihand4, and there would be an end of the
attachment that might have existed between the
gaseous lady (all balloons have the term "she" applied
to them, similar to a ship), and the 'Cold, unfeeling
brute that no..v binds the gallant Sir J. Franklin
in his ice-hound arms. I assuredly thick
that the honour of the navy—the honour
of all nautical me-ans, and last, not least,
the honour of the country is at stake till the where-
abouts w. the missing expedition be found, and that
efforts unremitting and energetically appliesi should
he persevered in. Any little aid that the' science
laerwenitical can render may certainly he adopted,
bat that is candidly speaking a very slendi.r thread to
bang aey hopes or expectations te, for this reason—
all balloons, as soon as they are launched, are liable
to the fluctuations and vicissitudes of expansion sae.

condensaton—the former is not only produced by
heat, it is often instantaneously caused by diminished
pros-ure. In such eases the balloon is rent to atoms
and its fragments fall to the ground.* In condensa-
tion they are deprived of their power, and of course
descend. I am far from undervaluing what those
small balloon.. might do in the cause, but for reasons
above stated lam equally far from lacing much de-
pendence on them as an auxiliary aid. As to an
aeronaut going out with the two vessels that started
last week—the aeronaut, his balloon, together with
the apparatus necessary for generating gas, all would
be an encumbrance. Such a proposition is perfectly
preposterous and visionary. Why ? First, because
there is very little summer in the Arctic regions;
then all chemists know that the acid sulphuric—the

very life and soul ( f the generating process of hydro-
gen gas-making—is freezing in England now in
sheltered situations—there would he an utter im-
possibility of generating gas in the Arctic re-
gions, unless the whole apparatus was sur-
rounded by a large and powerful fire, and if only a
leakage sufficient to pass through a tobacco-pipe made
.its escape and came in contact with the surrounding
fire, an explosion that would hurl the balloon, appa-
ratus, and all superintending it into the air would
ensue. We may be told leakages are to be stopped,
but you first have to find them, and before that could
be (hale a catastrophe occune In all my experience
threug% the east, north, west, and south of England,
I have not met a coal-gas engineer that would say his
works era entirely free from leakage, nor one absurd
tsteugh to offer to surround his gasholder with a fire;
tster, pea nay insert a pipe small or large and burn
the gasholder empty, but allow a promiscuous escape
where a flame or red heat exists, and the disastrous
coin,esiences are soon manifest ; or why do we have
gas explosions among consumers in London or other
places? Hydrogen is known to be far more subtle
than coal-gas, and its tendency to escape greater. To
generate hydrogen in the centre of a fire would be the
act of a foolhardy mountebank, and without fire it
could not be obtained at all ; the water, by the de-
composition of which the gar, is obtained, is solid, and
still accumulating ice, and is no sooner reduced to a
liquid than it is ice again. ,In short, difficulties
would be encountered at every step, and the
attempt rendered insurmountable. A very short
survey of these facts—presenting themselves to my
mtnd in succession induced me to give a reply—a
reply that I 'shall never regret—to a letter bearing
an official exterior, or, or rather containing, six in-
terrogatoriee. This letter reached me at Bedford in
the early part of November, shortly after my last
ascent this season from the above town—the first ac-
count of which, Sir, appeared in the columns of your
widely and extensively circulated journal. I presume
that the peculiar situation in which I was placed on
-the occasion of that ascent led to me being honoured
with the questions aforesaid. Suffice it to say that I
wrote back then what I mean now—that any attempt
o inflate a balloon on a large scale in the Arctic re-
gions would be a visionary delusion. I say on a large
scale, because I suggested that on a small scale
h Orogen to obtain lifting power for light varnished
psper balloons could be generated from a portable
apeere'us in the steerage of a ship, and by means of
a flexible hose conveyed to the balloon on deck under
evening, to carry out the experiment. This, I
believe, will be done. I wieh it every success,
though, far the reasons above stated, I should not be
surprised to hear that it availed nothing in
'the hands of Me. Shepherd, who tried the
first experiment—it was in the hands of a scientific
. gentleman who doubtless would make those sugges-
tions to the officers commanding the expedition
that would enable them to accomplish all which
- could be accomplished. Should your corres-
pondent " Nanticus " wish for any information
in
.trying eeronautic experiments, if he will drop
a line to me, in care of Mr. Wieland, mathemati-
cian, near Tvlanor-place, Walworth, I shall be extremely
. happy to afford him any information that it may be
in my power to give Young associations and old recol-
lections make the nautical service of my country, one
`Whose honour and welfare I- must ever desire, and the
jpfostf one friend and relation in that service, near
,senetdear to me, invests its name with a hallowed re-
efnenee. Cut off in his young and blooming days, he
the lines of the imperishable Byron :
" More whom the Gods love die young, was Laid of
, yer;
. And many eeeth3 do they escape by this,
The d,ath c)4' friond4, and th it which slays el.:a m
The thath c f friendship—love, youth, all that Is
Except mere breath; and since the silent shore,
• Air-eta at I tit eeprk those who longest miss
. old arcller's shafcg, r e hops tl e early grave,
Which men weep over, may be meant to save "

* This of course refers to 3132 all balloons incapable of
parrying an aeronaut to superintend Ulm.