Seattle daily post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1883-12-01
Up N A BALLOON.

ILouisyille CourierJeurnal.l


Louisville CourierJeurnsl.
Il have not been IN balloon for te
years. aud the very sigh. of one almos
makes me sick" He VAS little dried
up fellow. in 8 grea, shaggy coat Al
queer fell. hat. and he spoke 10 lit,l
group who were watching the mancau,
ers of Professor Warner With his balIoo
/ at the Exposition recently. He was
/ quick. nervous little man. and a!thoug;
Z his language vas refined. his slign
rench accent proclaimed his nation
Atty. The crowd gathered closer 70 tn
little man. and ceased TO watch the bl!
rolling mass OF canvass that Was filling
with gas 50 slowly.
Il was an aeronaut from nv child
hood. Nv father was tie conhdenta
friend of DR.. Johnson, the great Frenct
aeronaut. and had me in A balloon De-
fore | could walk. | don't know how
many ascensisns have made. | have
been up SO often that | used to feel a.
easy five miles above the earth as if
We're walking on solid ground. Was
twenty two years old when the Franco
Prusslan war broke out and Was then 10
Paris. NV father had Just died and
left me few thousand francs, and
was spending it AS foolishly as mos,
boys do who have never been used to
money and who suddenly come into a
little fortune. Instead Of fighting for
my country | was squsudering nv
fathers heardearned francs in the
cafes of Paris. | got up one morning
and they told me Paris WAS surrounded,
that We would all have to starve or sur
render. The several attempts which
had been made to break through the
lines had failed, and the city was full of
gloomy faces and sad hearts. Then |
happened to remember what my father
had said about the means by which
General Jordan gained his knowledge
of the position of the Austrians at the
battle of Fleurus in 1894. and how the
French had used them successfully at
the sisges of Maubenge. Charleroi,
Mannheim and Ehrenbretstien. Why
not use them now!
ut was toward the end of September.
1870. that | went to Gambetta. the lead
or of our provisional g,veruMent. and
laid the matter before him. He made
Immediate inquiries among scientific
men of the practicability of the scheme
and found that it would work. We
started two balloon factories. | had
charge of one in St. Denis. In a month
We made over forty balloons. We used
to make the envelope of calico. varnish-
ed on the outside with a mixture of
linseed oil and oxide of lead. while the
network, car and other arrangements
were after the ordinary fashion. All the
balloons that | superintendent had a Ca
pacity 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 Tours and other points 1t
grew to be quite a common mode of
sending letters during the long months
of the siege. Most of the balloons used
to have with them carrier pigeons. Let
tiers 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 thinnest
kind Of paper. The paper would be in
closed in quill and fastened to the
central tail feather of the pigeon. The
enemy began to open fire on our bal
looms at last, and several of them were
lost or fell into the hands of the Ger
mans. To avoid this we used to send
them ont ia the night, and tine govern
ment forbade the use of lights To keep
the anemv from seeing the balloon. !
had been busy in the factory for a
month or more, when it suddenly Oc-
CURED to me that | would like to take a
trip myself. | made all the arrange
ments, and on the night of the 18th
of November | got into the City of
Paris. capacity 1900 cubic feet, with
80 pounds of letters for Eyreux. left
about > O'Clock. The air was cold and
damp. took one of the wOrkmeu with
me, Il quiet, modest little fellow, named
Iefebre, who lived at Evreux and want
ed to get out of Paris. The wind was
in the right direction. and we had no
difficulty in getting off. In a few min
utes the city lay far below mo. | could
see the twinkling lights cleaning like
serpent eyes ont Of the abysmal dark
ness. All about me the air WAS so black
that could almost feel it like visible,
palpable reality.
Dark masses of clouds that guessed
to be 20 900 feet in thickness lay ike arl
ebon wall above me on all sides. The
stiffness Was something dreadful.
had been up a thousand times before.
but in daylight, and never under such
circumstances. passed over the
euemy's Camps till | saw the last of
their camp fires fade away in the night.
You can never tell by the motion of
the car how fast yon are going. | have
been swept along by whirlwin and a
glass full of water by my side never
spilled drop. 1t Is only by com
ID arson that you knoN Won are moving,
Some instinct told ma that night that We
We're being driven forward with fright
fui velocity. We tried to ke-I
up n conversation, but the awful
subllmity of the occasion and the va .ue
fears that filled us both kept u,
from talking. had an idea that We
were about four miiea above the earth.
surface. For the first time began Il
think of the unreasonable abyss thai
lay below me. Sometimes IN dream,
YOU have all felt that you were faiiins
into depths never sounded by plumHet
or hanging on the verge of precipic'
over All eternity of space that rollel
below.
Il felt something of this feeling o.
horror unutterable stealing over me
Suddenly felt the car give an ominou
creak, The bottom was of wicker work
We both felt this floor giving way unde
| us. The horror of the scene is beyOIt
all conception. sailor who saw tn
| hull of the vessel falling away from
under him in the midst of storm Wa
fortunate compared with US. | spran.
for the rope which connected with To
valve in the top and gave it stronl
jerk. There WAS no perceptible fall /,
the balloon. | gave another and
stronger pull. The cord gave way, an,
| found half of it in my hand. Ispran
| into the network, and yelled for Lefebr
10 do likewise The balloon lurche,
| over. and noticed few moments late
that the force with which Lefebre ha,
Jumped from the car had detached on
side of it, and 1t hung down by only
few cords. The balloon now roile'
from side to side.
I'VE We're hanging by the networ
that enveloped it, and did not know ho,
long We could remain suspended or ho,
soon the cords would break. The all
if seemed to me, was becoming cooler
| NV hands were becoming numb. Coul
II be that We were entering a higher an
rarer stratum of air: Were We stll
ascending? l looked down and shud
| 4.