Daily camera., 1898-06-24
ANDREE BALLOON HOAX.
Originated with an Imaginative
Cariboo Woman.
An Epidemic of Balloons Followed
and the Public Was Kept
ON Edge with Ex-
citement.

Before Prof. Andree left for the Arc
tic regions an illustrated circular was
sent from Sweden to the remote out
posts of the northwest territories and
British Columbia, requesting trappers,
half breeds, Indians, Hudson bay Off
GERS and all persons who might be in
the northern part of this continent dur
ing the summer to be on the lookout for
the explorers balloon. This wholesale
advertising has had an amusing result.
Barely had Prof. Andree and his ball
loon taken themselves off toward the
pole, when there was perfect cpl
demic of balloon visitants over all the
higher ATTITUDES of North America.
The lone bachelors of the plains puff
ing solitary pipes at their shanty doors
during the long evenings imagined
they saw Andree apparitions in the curl
ing wreaths of their own tobacco smoke.
The cowboys out on the big ranches,
for lack of something to do in their idle
days, took to discovering Andree bal
looms in every black speck that dark
ened the sky; and the Indians, too, had
a hand in the balloon inventions.
All these things were daily embel-
lished and set forth in local sheets, and
in more than one place some wag Gre
ated sensation by sending up fire
balloon and having laugh at the ex-
pense of the papers reporting Andree's
appearance.
Some of the reports have reached
Sweden, and now the joke is on the
savants of the Stockholm academy. The
dispatchsentou the otherday, "that the
foreign Office of Sweden has received
intelligence that several persons worthy
of credence saw Prof. Andree's balloon
early in August in British Columbia"
can be traced to one of the many balloon
inventions with which the westerners
amused themselves last summer.
The wife of mining company's
blacksmith in> Cariboo and her young
daughter, who lived in h white tent
near Quesnelle lake, were not going to
be behind the times when everybody in
the north were seeing balloons, so one
afternoon during the first week of Au-
gust the good woman called her daugh-
ter from the tent and they, too, hunted
the sky for Prof. Andree.
To be sure, according to their own
words, they made mistake and looked
south instead of north, and that was
only a trifle in directions: and, never
mind, they saw their balloon. Said Mrs.
Blacksmith, whose pride may be imag-
ined when she learned that her story
was not only to be printed, but to be
sent all the way to the Swedish govern-
ment: 81 noticed a round, gray-looking
object in the sky. AS I continued to
watch it appeared to get larger asi de-
scended. l could see two objects. one
much smaller, apparently, suspended
from the larger one above. 1T continued
to descend until could plainly see that
the object was a balloon with a large
basket.hanging underit. 1t finally COM
menced to swing back and forth, and
move very fast in that direction" (point
ing east).
Asked if she had ever seen balloon,
certainly she had. What kind? Why,
small ones, you know; everyone has
seen them attached to the end of q
vendors stick.
No one else around the mine either
saw or heard of this balloon, but the
pretty fairy story found its way to
the nearest printing Office, and the ac-
count came to the notice of L. F. Ire
mar, assistant secretary of the Geologi-
cal society of the Pacific, San Francisco,
and he wrote to the manager of the
Cariboo mine. and he, shrewd fellow,
never had such chance to advertise
the mine in all his life, so he wrote
down all the details of the aerial visitant
and not Few remarks on the mine,
adding: 81 regret that there are no
other persons who saw the balloon"
The whole story went from Cariboo
to San Francisco, and from San Fran
cisco to Stockholm, where the public
devoutly hoped it had been buried; but
here comes the balloon ghost stalking
through the land again.
One wonders if the thing is to go on
in ever-rccurring cycles, and if the
Swedish government can be persuaded
to call in those circulars.-N. Y. Sun.
Progress In China.
It has been agreed by the Chinese
authorities that Chinese girls at Shang-