Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-06-30
UP IN A BALLOON.
Odd Experience To Be Enjoyed
at the Exposition.
LITTLE DANGER OF ACCIDENT.

LITTLE UANGEh VI AUUlUGNI.
The -Erial Ship Is u Captive and -Ascepds
Brought to Terra Firmn Again by
Means of neutrality-suspicious. Of
the Balloon.
WORLDS FAIR, June "a Especially l.
Among the odd experiences to be en-
joyed at the fair none is more novel or in
teresting than that of going up in a bal
loon. This balloon which has been
placed here for the amusement Of visitors
and for the enrichment Of its proprietors
is not Il free-fying balloon. That is to say,
it does not sail through space as fast as
the winds of the earth may drive it.
This is a captive balloon and a good, large
rope it is that is used to hold the monster
to earth. Accents in it are comparatively
free from danger.
The balloon park is a little ways beyond
that other monster Of the overhead regions,
the vertical wheel. You pay small ad-
mission fee to this park, and when inside
may do as you please about going up in
the balloon. There are restaurants here,
and. pleasant pavilions, and II may sit
and rest and sip his beer or his glass of
lemonade while watchingth the nronaut and
his assistants manage their aerial craft
and get the passengers properly fixed in
the car before starting on a journey to the
clouds. There is something about Il bal
loon which catches the popular fancy. l
never saw a balloon that l did not wan to
get near it and study it, and finally to
make an ascent in it. Probably a majority
of the human race are similarly affected.
It must be that the balloon is fascinating
because it is mysterious, and because it
scars to regions which man can visit in no
other way, because it is a sort of connect
ing link between terra fir1na and the
heavens. At any rate, whatever the cause,
large numbers of people do come to this
park to see the captive air-ship. and many
of them pay S2 EACH for the privilege of
making the ascent.
The balloon is larger than you thought
1t was. A very cumbersome and un-
wieldy thing it appears to be as it towers
above your head, tugging at its ropes, and
looking slick and impatient in the air.
This balloon is about sixty feet in diameter,
and being nearly spherical has a capacity
of 100,0 600 cubic feet of gas. 1t is made Of
silk, of two thicknesses placed together.
The silk for balloons is several times light
ly vanished, the advantage of a number
of coats being that where n may fail to
stop a pore in the fabric another will be
pretty sure to do SO. The advantage of
the double envelope is apparent, for the
same reason. 1t is not an easy matter to
make a balloon that will hold hydrogen
gas, but it can be done, and is done. This
air-ship loses no more than one-half of one
per cent. of its contents during a day, and
ifit were made of three thicknesses Of silk,
each seven or eight times lightly vanished,
it would not lose wen this much. Hydro
gen, you know, is the lightest of all known
substances. 1t has only one-fourteenth the
weight of ommon air, and air is not very
heavy, since more than thirteen cubic feet
of it are required to make one pound
weight.
This is why the balloon must be so large.
The buoyant power is obtained by the diff
ference between the weight of hydrogen
and the weight of the air displaced. If
the hydrogen were perfectly pure this diff
ference would be one and one-sixth ounces
per cubic foot, but as it is difficult to pro-
duce hydrogen altogether pure a lifting
power of one ounce per cubic foot is all that
can be reckoned on with safety. That is
about what is obtained in this balloon,
and its lifting power, therefore, including
its own weight, is about $3.50 pounds, or
more than three tons. The balloon itself
and its net, car and lines weigh about 1000
pounds, SO that there is left a net power of
two tons for passengers. Under favorable
conditions the air-ship is able to carry up
twenty-five or thirty passengers, but it
rarely takes more than fifteen at one load.
A curious thing about balloons is the
wonderful increase of their power when
their diameter is increased. If a balloon
sixty feet in diameter is able to lift a total
weighto of 5000 pounds, one would naturally
suppose a balloon Of double the diameter, or
100 feet, would lift twice the weight, or six
tons. AS a matter of fact, a balloon of
this size would lift twenty-eight tons Sup
pose a man were to build a balloon, spher-
ical, 500 feet in diameter, and fill it with
large air-ship, it is true, but not nearly SO
AuAeS II v uA0AA4CCCA 40 SO4AC VI VuCSO Dlk
buildings at the fair. 1t is perhaps a prac-
tically impossible balloon, but if such a
monster were built and inflated it would
have a lifting power of more than 5000
tons. If hydrogen gas could be made as
cheaply as coal gas it would cost nearly
$780, 600 to fill such a balloon.
The captive balloon had it's origin in
France. 1t has been used there, and later
in England and Germany, as well as tho
United States, for the purposes of military
observation and signaling. The French
were the first to put it in use, and it was
under the great Napoleon that the earliest
trials were made. The French were also
the first to adopt the captive balloon as a
means Of giving pleasure to people on such
occasions as worlds fairs, and at the two
Last expeditions universal held in Paris
there were large captive balloons, one OF
them very much larger than this one.
This balloon was built in Paris, and itis
managed by a Persian @ronaut, NJ. Allier,
who has been in the b%allooning business
all his life. The French are the great ex-
perts in @ronautics. During the siege Of
Paris, twenty years ago, they built and
sent out At the city about 200 balloons, all
but three or four Of which descended with
out accident to their occupants. The most