The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1873-07-21

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The BALLOON MANlA.--If Professor wise
lis successful In crossing the Atlantic in n
balloon, the newspapers will have to add to
"marine news" "aGrial news" and will be
relative as the steam-car is to the telegraph.
Carrier.pigeons, it Is stated, find no trouble
In flying from balloons three miles high. but
above that point they die. The balloon
ASCENSION friade In September, 1854, by Pro
fessor John La Mountain, not the one who
was killed on the. Fourth, accompanied by
John A. Haddock, Of Watertown, N. Y,
turned out in very perlous manner for the
two voyagefs. Before they were aware of
1t they w9re drifting over an immense ex-
tent of wilderness in Canada which stretches
away to regions of endless cold and night.
So they concluded to come down. The bal
loon had to be abandoned, aud after two
days of wandering and extreme h;.rdships
they encountered party of men from Of
tawa who were hunting timber tracts. They
there learned that the balloon had taken
them one hundred and fifty miles beyond
the boundaries of civilization.
One who has been up in Il balloon thus
describes the sensation:
~ could not realize that was moving.
seemed to be standing still and the earth TO
be falling away. AS we rose higher the illu-
sion was lost, though there was still no con-
seriousness of motion. The objects below
dwindled until The men and women, horses
and vehicles in the streets of the city looked
like pigmies, then insects, and then faded
from sight. The trees and houses looked
like toy villages, the river appeared CORFU
gated, the waters bdilit'g. aThe toyns on
both sides Of the river became invisible.
We steadily mounted and floated to the
east over fertile fields, and rich farms. Vast
Enclosures seemed like small gardcn-beds, as
regularly laid out us checker boards. We
were now mile high, but we could hear
very distinctly the cries Of the persons be-.
low u.s."
The greatest height ever attained by an
aeronaut was in 1852, when NJ. Glashier
reached an altitude of $1,000 feet nearly
seven miles.
The absence Of 4 sense of motion in bal
loon travelling, either up, down. or Sidewise,
speed of hundred miles an hour, is dis
tinctive popularity of this mode of travel.
Upon this point balloonatic who has tried
it says:
eve could not tell whether we were going
up or down, except by tearing bits of tissue
paper and dropping them out OF the car. If
we were ascending the paper would fall, if
descending it would mount. We saw the
sun set three or four different times, our
steady ascent giving us new points of vision.
We began to feel chilly and donied our over
coats. The mercury had fallen twenty-five
or thirty degrees. We were over two miles
high, and we could plainly perceive the
earth's sphericity." s..s
The first fire.baloou went up ninety years
ago last month in France, and in the same
year two men made successful ascents. The
"feyer" for balloon asceDsiens broke out
in England and America the same year, and
in each cottntry men went lip In gas-balloons.
A year or two later the English channel was
safely crossed in balloon. The distance in
airline is fifteen miles, and it was then
thought wonderful achievement.
Balloons were used with great success dul-
ring the siege of Paris, often carrying several
hundred pounds weight in dispatches.