The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-07-22
pRoFEssoR wIsE.s BALLoON TRIp.

The most remarkable incident of the
celebration of the Fourth at Chicago
was its being made the occasion of the
four hundred and forty-fourth balloon
ascension of Professor John Wise, who
is not only entitled TO the credit of hav-
ing made more ascensions without ac-
cident than any other 3ronaut, but of
having made the longest and swiftest
balloon journey on record. Professor
Wise furnishes us with brief account
of his ascension, in those features which
appeared TO him of sufficient moment to
require statement. We miss in his mar
rative all the grandiloquent accounts of
the exhilerating sensations incident to
the ascension; the familiar fact that the
8ronaut experiences none but the most
serene and contemplative sense of ele-
walton, as if the earth were Withdrawing
from under his feet, and he himself were
securely poised and nearly stationary;
of the expanding landscape, as town af-
ter town arose in sight, until half the
cities of Northern Illinois, one after an
other, came into prospect, and Elgin,
Racine, Joliet and Michigan City were
visible in the four quarters of the hori-
zon. To obtain the sensational part of
the narrative, it is Indispensable that
some landsman should go on board.
From Professor Wise we only learn that
Chicago astonished him by the amount
of ground it covered-equal in appear
ance to the area of New York or Phila-
delphia-and by the abrubtness with
which it ended on three sides, in open,
uninhabited and almost unfenced prai-
RE. Mr.. Wise tells us that, in over
looking Chicago from an altitude of
about 4, 500 feet, the transient observer
is chiefly struck with its sharp outlines
and the absence of the ordinary suburbs
by which city usually merges into the
open country. Having visited Chicago
when it contained but two hundred
houses, the 9ronaut was impressed with
our rapid growth in a degree entirely
satisfactory to those who boast of it
from a higher standpoint. But apart
from this, and the fact that the ballast
sand which he threw out of his balloon
reflected the suns rays like SO many
drops of rain, so as to make a perfect
sand-bow, this genuine old tar of the
atmosphere has nothing more novel to
record than a sailor would have in re-
turning from his four hundred and for
ty-fourth trip across the Atlantic. Prof.
Wise's great balloon trip to which we
alluded, was that made in company with
LaMountain and one or two others, in
which he travelled from st. Louis across
Illinois, Northern Indiana and Ohio,
passing between Niagara and Buffalo,
rifle tempest, in which, as he afterwards
learned, sixteen vessels were lost. He
occupied but seventeen hours in going
from st. Louis to the "John Brown
tract" in the northern wilderness of
New York, distance of about 200
miles. While so long flight, at an av-
erage rate of a mile per minute, seems
to demonstrate the capacity of the bal
| loon in its present condition for long
voyages for scientific purposes, the fact
that the air-ship survived a storm in
| which sixteen water vessels were lost,
or partly wrecked, seems not to amount
to formidable argument against its
safety. The Professor regards the clue
| to practical aerial transit as lying, not in
| improvements of the balloon, but in ac-
tual flight by means of wings, which
can, in time, be made as large, in pro-
portion TO the weight of the human
body, and worked as powerfully and
surely as those of many insects and
birds. New experiments to this end
are developed at each annual meeting
of the British Aeronautic Society, now
operating under the presidency of the
Duke of Argyll, and to whose objects
he is devoting his fortune.
1t affords. perhaps, one of the most
encouraging indications of the possible
ultimate success of such experiments,
that single Rronaut should have made
so many ascensions as Prof. Wise in en-
tire safety. For if we compare the
number of journeys and aggregate dis
tance travelled by him in all these ascen-
sions with the tables of railroad acct
dents, it will probably be found that,
had he travelled the same distance by
cars, he would have been entitled. un-
der the law of railway averages, to have
had his neck broken long since.-Chi-
cago Tribune.