Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-03-02
PROGRESS IN BALLOONS.
WHAT THE NATIONS HAVE DONE
FOR WAR PURPOSES.


Wars of the Future-France Ahead of
pIlances Kept Secret.
The scientists have discovered nitro-gly-
cerine dynamite, melinite, raburite, and
hetlinite, with which armies can be destroyed
and Notifications blown to atoms; they have
invented methods for the Wholesale annihila-
tion of everything and everybody, but they
have not Yet devised ways and means for the
employment of the same, except in certain
cases. which do not always present them
selves Mines sometimes are exploded at tho
least opportune moment, and are only prac-
ticable when they can be laid without let or
hindrance during Siege or on the suppoSi-
tion that the enemy will present himself eN-
actly at the proper instant, while us charges
to projectiles they occasionally disappoint
those who use them. And suppOsng even
that they did invariably come up to great
pectations, the field of their usefulness is
necessarily limited, and must necessarily re-
main so until somebody does contrive ways
and means by which they can be worked
with as easily as ordinary common powder.
Rockets and balloons you must know, are
the particular desiderata at present-of
course, mean balloons and rockets that will
go in the right direction and not behave &c
centrically-and so far nobody has hit upon
any method for their direction which has
stood the test of practical experience, al
though "the man vino is well informed" has
learned that at last a solution has been
found to the very interesting problem of
aerial navigation.
With directabe balloons we shall be in
vincible, sing in chorus the big newspapers,
for 10! a FTenchman-ne has an Italian
name, but was born Transalpinely--a patriot
who has refused the most tempting foreign
offers, is about to endow his country with
"blessing!" Where will an enemy be! what
can he do if we sailing above his head, can
learn and so fOrestall his every movement,
not to speak of the dismay and terror sown
in his ranks, decimated by the explosives
which we will shower down upon his headl
l should say, effectively. that the enemy
would be nowhere, only l am very incredu-
lous still, having studied pretty attentively
all that has been as yet accomplished in aer-
ostation, which, il we We're to have believed
announcements similar to those made now a
twelvemonth ago, had even then been re-
duced to a positive certainty by Capt. Krebs
at the aerostatic laboratory Of Meudon.
That steerable free balloons will be very
useful in war cannot be questioned, judging
from what was accomplished with the Cap |
tive article at Maubeuge, Fleurus, Charleroi |
and Antwerp in 1914, at Venice in 1919, at |
Richmond in June 1862 at PaSa- Pucu, in |
Paraguay, twenty years ago On the 5th of |
September M laurel, an apothecary of |
Metz, attempted to communicate with the |
National Defense government by means of |
small aerostats, and in the course of the fol-
lowing ten days did get safely to their desti-
nation about two-thrds of tho 300 messages
sent out from the beleaguered city; and dur
ing the siege of Paris, thanks to MN. Yon,
ID Artois and the brothers Goddard, 1856 per.
sons 36S carrier pigeons and 8 900 900 of let
ters reached the provinces by means of bal
looms between th9 23d of September, 1870,
and the 2Sth Of January, 1871. But these
results, although encouraging, only proved
that communications might possibly be kept
up aerially: they were not absolutely salts
factory, as the aeronauts were always eX-
posed to aleatory risks dependent upon at
mosphcric circumstances, SO that there never
could be any certainty of where they would
land
] suppose, however that the Meudon peo-
pie have accomplished something serious in
the course of the past three years, as the
French army has now regular balloon
train, with two officers, ninety four men and
seven vehicles, including a Hydrogen
wagon" for field service, and fortress SER
vice of five officers and 1+2 non-commis-
stoned officers and privates, which organiza-
tion has been taken as model by Italy, Rus
sia and Belgium, the countries in which,
next to France, most interest has been man
Tested in this ques tion.
In England military aerostation only be-
gan to be developed in 1878, when series of
experiments were made at Woolwich under
the directions of Capt Noble, assisted by
Capts. Lee, Elsdale and Templer, the latter
IN aeronaut of acknowledged competency ,
But their experiments were only with cap
i've balloons-the Saracen, the Talisman, tho
the Pioneer, etc.--and did nothing
20 advance the solution Of the most import
ant problem, how to steer balloons, which
problem still remains as it was when balloons
were used in Afghanistan, Zululand and
Egypt
In Germany the balloon question is still {
ess advanced, although Frances powerful {
,nemy has spared no effort to get at her !
leighbor's secrets There was an attempt s
made not long ago, at the sham siege of May |
nee, when one balloon was lost altogether 7
md the other just escaped destruction, while,
till more recently, tho staff officers who,
lear Berlin, undertook to calculate from a | g
,alloon car the distance between the two r
.rmies, not only failed to do SO, but were
bliged to give up the job altogether as their
machine could never be raised to the re- g
IulTeu alUlJude. In spite OF all the money r
pent the German aerostatic corps is as badly :
provided with the apparatus and is as in =
experienced as it was in 1870, when a detach-
nent, trained ct Coblentz, could only attain a
n altitude of 1873 feet at Bischeim, when it
vas desired to obtain birds eye view of Il
'trasbourg.
And the conclusion is that tho French are L
till long way ahead of all other nations, C
Though there is reason to suppose the prob e
bility of disagreeable surprise on the part
f Belgium, by which, as Belgium is accused
t philo-Teutonic proclvities, the Germans k
'ill profit 1t is somewhat singular that,
iven the inventive genius of our country
len, America should have given birth to G
othing more important than those balloon 81
1rpedoes which were SO much talked about g,
arly in the year 1880, and which are by no y
leans an originality, as in 1872 German in c,
entor proposed a balloon system to the q
.ussian government by which Napoleon and =
II his staff were to have been eliminated
What the French have now succeeded in =
ding it is impossible to know, as they keep
O profound secret, and no longer admit
ven native reporters to witness their expert
tents Perhaps they have quite succeeded,
srhaps they have not; and for the reason1 A
nat they keep their secrets to themselves, the
ublic remains skepticaL-Paris Cor. New
-ork Times