The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-01-09
FALL. lss A MILE.
-sSSsEs
Dropping Like a S*pt IN the
Clouds TO the Ea.
a Startling Adventure I'm a
Tissandfer and Covers "trip
from Auteuil-Tfmely
PrecautIOn.
Paris News.1

Very recently a startling experience OF
Messrs CASTOR Tissandier and Frederick
Cover, husband of Nordica, the American
prima donna, showed that the practical
dangers of ballooning are still far from
being surmounted however well actual
disasters may be avoided by GOODNESS and
skill These two gentlemen assembled
from the Tissandier establishment at
Auteuil about l o'clock, to continue
series of scientific experiments upon Ger.
tain theories advanced by M. Cover.
They sailed slowly across Paris to the
southeast at a hight of about 1900 feet,
and disappeared in the direction Of Vim
cennes. In answer to the inquiry of a
Morning News representative NJ Cover
relates what befell the voyage afterward,
"We were at a hight of 5000 feet above
the village of Fontenay, A fete was
going on there, and the faint echo of
drums, mingled with the cries of children
and the barking of dogs, just reached our
ears amid all the awful silence of the
heavens. We were among the clouds of
the lower stratum, and had before our
eyes the magnificent spectacle of their
formation, The forces of nature moved
them to and fro in a kind Of sullen
majesty, now piling them into mountain
Just above our heads, and then as the
mass toppled to its fall, dispensing it sud.
denly, as by blow from the hammer of
some invisible Titan, making riffs
through which we saw the fair green
lands, and then quickly closing them, as
the vaporOus monsters rolled into fresh
combinations. 1t was the inner temple of
creative power, perhaps the grandest
sight revealed to human eyes, and we
stood entranced in silent admiration.
"Suddenly we felt a breath of cold and
biting air, as though the world had re.
Volved beneath us and brought us over the
pole. At the same moment, the needle
upon vertical scale from which | had
been reading indications of leveD began to
travel with a startling speed. A sound
like the roar of surf filed our ears for an
instant, and then gave place to the noise
of the fete, which had now swelled into
cry, as it seemed, from every living thing
below. Tissandier threW out sand, and
She sand flew up in our faces. Our breath
came short and hard, and we felt the rush
ing air as on a steamer against the Wind.
We were falling, suddenly, as though the
great globe above our heads had given
Wayl Yet nothing visible had happened,
save that the under surface of the envelope
had all at once grown hollow and wrinkled,
like the face of an aged man. The clouds
were gone, as by magic, and the ca IA was
rushing at us, with its thousand voices in
full cry. Tissandier stood cool and firm,
dealing out ballast with steady hand and
counting the bags that remained.
"'Stand by the anchor he said, quietly,
as if at his sSudy-table, and be ready to
cut away when tell you
down we went; the drag-rope touched
the earth-trailed across the fields, with
scarcely perceptible difference in our fall
The ground seemed alive with men hurry
ing from every side, with here and there
h0rseman among them. A meadow was
just beneath, and quick glance beyond
showed the edge of forest. The balloon
trembled as from a blow, and our speed
across the field was suddenly doubled.
We mad fallen into squalL
"'Cut away said the steady voice of
the aerOnaut, and the anchor fell Over
went a bag of ballast, too, and thus sud
denly hghtened by thirty pounds the bal
loon regained its poise at fifty feet above
the ground, and our fall of mile through
the air was safely ended.
~Never was sound precept more quickly
followed by practical illustration. Less
than an hour before Tissandier had been
dwelling upon the need of reserving bal
last as a precaution. There are in the
air, said he, occasional rarefactions into
which q balloon can fall without the
slightest warning. When you are near
the ground it does not much matter. But
no prudent aeronaut, at height OF
1000 metres or more, will allow his ballast
10 OcCO61e even nearly SAuduStSO- aHO
this was precisely what our own case
showed so shortly afterward. We en-
eountered partial vacuum, a veritable pit
81 the air, where the lifting power of gas
suddenly fell to almost nothing Air was,
Of course, on the way from some area of
@ greater density to restore the normal
pressure, and of this we had ample evil
dence upon reaching the ground. The
anchor struck the soft earth in the most
favorable position, buried half its fukes
in the soil, and was snatched out with
scarcely an effort by the flying car.
Again and again the heavy iron bounded
fifty feet into the air, and it was only |
when a score of stout laborers had laid |
hold of the drag rope (at cost of few |
tumbles) that the gambols of cur playful |
monster were brought to an end. And
then Tissandier, while obliging hands
folded and packed the balloon, produced a
notebook and his map, and calmly com.
pleted his record of the excursion.