The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1883-12-14
UP in K BALLUON.

X0EllluN8 NApUSsOtsSS
Oaring lho Siege Of Parts-A Night
~ HoerOf.
n haye mot been in q balloon for ten
years, and the very sight of one almost
4 makes ne sicts.s He was . little dried
up feliow,in 8 great shaggy coat and
ouoer feltF hat, and he spoke tos little
aroup whowsre watching the msneuvers
8 ProE. Warner with his balloon at the
Exposition recently. He was . quick,
nervous little man, and, although his
language was refined, his slight French
accent proclaimed his nationality. The
crowd gathered closer and closer to the
the little man, and ceased to watch the
big mass of rolling canvas that was fill
ing with gas 80 slowly.
81 va an aeronant from my childhood.
Ny father was the confidential friend OF
Or. Josses, the great French aeronaut,
and had me in q balloon before | could
walk. Idon't know how nan ascen-
sions I have made. / have been up so
often that | used to ieel as easy
Eve miles above the earth
es if i were walking on solid
ground. / was twenty-five years old
when the Franco russian war broke
out, and sas thenin Paris. My father
had just died and lett mi a few thons-
and francs, and | was spending it as
foolishly rs most boys do who have new
or been used to money and who sud
denly come into a little fortune. In
stead Of q hting for my country / was
ssouandering my fathers h%ard-earne1
francs in the cafes OF Paris. I got up
one morning and they told me Paris
was surrounded, that We would have to
Starve or surrender. The several at
tempts that had been made to break
through the lines had failed, and the
city was full Of gloomy faces and sad
hearts. Then i happened to remember
what my iatker had said about the
means by which Gen. Jonrdon gained
his knowledge Of the position Of the.
dnstrinns at the battle of Fleurus in
l794, and how the French had used
them successfully at the sicges of Man
benge, Charleroi, Mannheim and Ehren-
breistein. Why not Use them now?
sit was toward the n OF September,
er of our provisional government, and
laid the matter belize him. He made
immediate inquiries among scientific
men of the p~raclicabillitv os the scheme,
and found that it would work. We
started two balloon factories I had
charge of one in S.. Denis. In a month
We made over forty balloons. We used
to make the envelope Of calico, var
nished on the outside with a mixture of
linseed oil and oxide of lead, while the
network, car and other arrangements
were alter the ordinary fashion. All
the balloons that I euperintended had a
capacity of 10000 cubic feet of gas. We
used to have them manned by sailors,
and they were mainly used to carry
messages from Paris to Marseilles, to.
Evreux, TO Tunis and other points. II
grew to be quite a common mode
months of the siege. Most of the tai
looms used to have with them carrier
pigeons. Letters would be sent.
back into Paris in this
way; the contents of the letter would be
photographed. This would reduce its
size to within an area of one or two
square inches of the thinlest kind Of pa
per. This paper would be inclosed in q
Quill ard fastened to the central tail
feather of the pigeon. The enemy be-
gan to open fire on our balloons at last,
and several of them were lost or fell in
to the hands of the Germans. To avoid
this we used to sent them out in the
night, and the government. forbid the
use of lights to ketpthe enemy from see
ing the balloon. l had been busy in the
factory fora month or more, when it,
suddenly occurred to me that / would
like to take trip myself. [ made all the
arrangements, and on tue night of the
18th Of November l got into the City Of
Paris capacity 5000 cubic feet, with
$50 pounds OF letters tor Evruex. l left
about 8 O'Clock. The air was cold and
damp. I took one of the wOrkmen with
me, q quiet, modest little fellow named
Lefebre, who lived at Evreux and want.
I'd to get out of Paris. This wind was in
the right direction and we had
no difficulty in getting Of.
city lay far below me. l could see the
twinkling lights cleaning like serpent
eyes out ot5the abyssinal darkness. Ali
about me the air was 30 black that |
BILE reality. Dark masses of clouds, that
I guessed to be twenty Thousand feet In
thickness. lay like an ebon wall above
mo OH all sides. The stiffness was
something dreadful. / had been up "a
thousand times before, but in daylight
never under auch circumstances. /
passed over the enemv's camps till
saw the last of their camp fres fade
way in the night.
"You can never tell by the motion of
the car how fast you are going. / have
been swept along by a whirlwind and q
glaas fnllyof water by my side never
spilled drop. 1t is only by coinpari-
son that you know you are moving.
Some instine. told me that night that we
were being driven forB.rd with fearful
nInnVfvy Co., Nv kHsnA - tr11~ = go
versation, but the awful sublimity of
the OCCASION and tlls vague fears that
flied III both kept us from talking. [
had an idea that we were about four
miles above the earth's sur
face. For the first time
! began to think of the Unreasonable
abyss that lay below me. Sometimes in
dreams yoI all Rave felt that you were
falling into depths never sounded by
fIummet, o. hanging on the verge ofa
precipice ove an eternity of space that
rolled below. 81 felt something of this
feeling of horror unutterably stealing
over me. Suddenly l felt the car give
an ominous creak. The bottoui was OF
wicker work, fastened by ropes to the
sides OF tho q We both felt this floor
giving "ssy under Us. The horror of the
scene is beyond all conce ption. A sail
or who saw the hull of the vessel failing
away from under him in the midst Of
the storm wa fortunate compared to us.
1 sprang for the rope which connected
18th the valve in Il Q top aud gave it q
strong jerk, There was no perceptible
fall nthe balloon. l gave another and
and . stronger pull. The cord gave way
and I found half of it in my hand. I
esprang into the network, and yelied for
Leiebre to do likewise.
The balloon lurched over, and / no.
t,ced q few moments later that the force
With which Lefrebe had jumped from
the car had detached one side of it aud
Y hing down by only q few cords. The
balloon now rolled from side to side.