The Grenada gazette., 1886-01-23
FAST TO A LOCOMOTIVE.
The Adventure Of an Aeronaut
IA and q Reporter.

4, ~ wish you would relate to me your
most thrilling adventure, professor-l
want it to tell the boys"
Prof, King>tadt is one of the most
4 genial and kindly of men; and / did
not in the least hesitate to ask him for
q story. His life has been filled with
a adventurous incidents; for he is an
d acronaut by profession, and an enthusi-
nstic believer in the future Of aerial
navigation.
The world is much inclined to laugh
at enthusiasts, and call them visionary;
but the world owes great deal to
visionary people,. Such men are the
pioneers OF all great inventions, and
they commonly receive small remuner-
alton for their lifelong labors.
Here is the professor, for example;
he is often without the means to buy q
good dinner, and is obliged to eat a
poor one. He might make money in
many other yocstions; but he sticks
fast to balloons, and risks his life in
making ascents with the unseltishness
of man who loves his chosen art, and
has full faith in it.
He hopes to construct an air-ship
which can be propelled in any required
direction; and he will spend his life at
work on that problem-and very likely
fail to solve it; yet-as he says-some
one else may take it up where he was
obliged to leave it, and carry it on to
full achievement.
Twenty-seven years Of not altogether
successful experimenting have not yet
robbed his kindling gray eye of one
whit Of its interested brightness. Hope
still glows there. Iwish he might sue
ceed. What grand flash of triumph
would light his face, and stir his heart!
1t would be sight to do one good to
witness it.
"Willingly," said the professor.
"Anything to amuse the boys. 1 like
boys; for they are always honest crit
les, and say what they think. Let me
see; my most thrilling adventurep
Well, I should say that my most thrill
ing adventure was very brief one, yet
exciting, while it lasted, both exciting
and dangerous, too.
II had assembled that day." he con-
tinued, "from one of the suburbs Of
Chicago. 1t was not public occasion,
exactly, but an experimental ascent, to
test theory which Chicago gentle
man then held as to the setting of the
aerial currents from the western land
board across Lake Michigan. His idea
Of uniform current, at certain
height, during spring and fall, was
capable, if proven, of possible utiliza-
ton for purposes Of travel between
Chicago and Detroit, VI Toledo, or even
to Cleveland. A reporter for the Trib.
"ne Went up with me; nice, quiet
young man of twenty or twenty-five,
named Burlington Stevens.
MY balloon was taken TO the
grounds adjoining the private residence
of the gentleman in whose behalf I
made the ascent and filled with city gas
by means Of hose connected with one
Of the street mains. We got off at two
o'clock in the afternoon, and the
weather being quite calm, the balloon
rose steadily. almost perpendicularly,
for a distance of four to five thousand
feet.
"At about that height we enooun-
tered a pronounced northwest current
which at once carried us off to the
southeast down over the Indiana corn
fields. Instead Of heading for Detroit
or Cleveland, we were en- route for In
dianapolis, or Cincinnati, as had fully
expected. In an hour we we're over
the Kankakee River; and seeing no suf-
ticicnt object to be served by going, l
pulled the valve rope, and we tended
gradually downward for fifteen or
twenty minutes. By this time we had
sunk to within thousand feet Of the
earth, when stiff 'grounder'. or sur
face breeze, caught US and took us OF
70 southwest.
"It was about thrce-thirty in the
afternoon; and there was good deal
too much air stirring to handle the bal
loon comfortably. But let her settle
to within two hundred and fifty feet OF
the fences and bushes, and had just
tossed out one Of our grapnels, when
Stevens, who had been busily writing
his press account Of the ascent, looked
out and suddenly exclaimed:
Professor, there's the railway
shead!'
1T was a branch line Of the North
ern Indiana. ] think; and at that point
the track ran pretty nearly east ana
-out Wa were coming from north