The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-11-14
CAPTIVE BALLOON BREAKS ITS
MOORINGs
Carries Party OF Nine on a Fearful
And Dangerous Voyage-Good Work
OF The AeronRut.


into the bottom OF the basket all OF
| you. keep perfectly quiet. IN land you
! safely within an hour and half
/ somewherei" This command was ut
/ tered IN sharp, tense tone, for a great
| gas balloon was shooting skyWard
at the rate Of hundreds of feet per sec
ond. IL had an ascending capacity for
/ twenty people, and there were but nine
| huddled in the basket suspended below
the swaying neck of the monster that
was swiftly carrying them away from
/ the earth.
Eight Of the nine obeyed the com
mand and dropped into the bottom OF
the basket awed by the horror Of the
situation. Breathless. helpless and With
palid faces they could only keep their
| eyes on the man who stood above them
! his lips and brows drawn as he looked
searchingly at his party for an instant,
then turned, and with the lightness OF a
| cat climbed into the rigging, and with
! his knife cut away portion Of the neck
! of the balloon that had been rolled into
| a ball below the valve cord The ball OF
cord on which nine lives depended un-
coiled and dropped into the basket, and
! Aeronaut Dudley, with a sigh of relief
| slipped down the ropes and again stood
among his companions but this time
with a smile of reinsurance on his face.
| He realized the danger but the others
| did not, and one of their chances Oh
! safety was for them to remain in ig-
norance They did not know that they
were nearly a mile above the earth and
rapidly going higher without an an
! chor and not an ounce of ballast aboard
Dudley alone knew what il was to be-
adrlft in the ocean Of the air but for the
moment his greatest purpose was toI
quiet the fears of his fellow voyagers.
| This he did while the balloon was ever
/ shooting up and up and up through al
stratum of warm air then up into an
other stratum, in which their teeth
chartered and the blood seemed about,
! to CONCEAL in their veins, but the next
moments the frigid zone lay far below
them they passed onward and upward
into a warmer stratum.
1t was the captive balloon that had
broken its cable at 4:30 p m. Saturday
as II was being drawn earthward FROM
an altitude of 1900 feet. Eight persons
| had accompanied the aeronaut Edward
Dudley. They were Walter Leon, al
trapeze performer; Edward Foster, AMI
employe of a music hall, G. p. Videcoq,
a tailor, j. r. Leonard, secretary of al
pattern makers union; M. l.. Haworth.l
an employe OF the Southern Pacific
John II. Swift. a special policeman, and
| Mrs. j. p. Gunsauls of 1928 Market
street, where her husband is proprietor
of "crisp" factory. While the balloon
was being drawn downward, but was
yet nearly 500 feet in air the hempen
cable had parted.
The ascension had been made amid
cheers and laughter and mock good
byes. At the suggestion OF the aeronaut
! Mrs. Gunsaus had removed her hat,
/ which she placed i'm the care of her
| daughter to await her return. 1t was a
jolly party that ascended, confident in
the knowledge that the thing Of iron
! and steel there on the earth had perfect
mastery over that thing, lighter than
the air and which tugged at it's bonds
Even the management had been so i'm
| pressed with this confidence that no
| anchor had been provided, no sandbags
! Of ballast had been evenly distributed
around the basket or car. Even the
valve rope had been coiled up out Of the
way Of accident and tucked into the
neck of the balloon, far above the reach
of anyone I'm the basket-then came the
parting of the cable, the strand of hemp
that bound the merry party 10 the
| earth. A jar like the sudden stopping
of an elevator. and then II seemed that
the balloon stood perfectly still while
the whole earth fell and fell, and fell
and then came the command of the
aeronaut. It was instantly obeyed, and
then wait such as follows the ready
Il On one side was a reach of endless
ocean, on another the forty-mile stretch
of water known as San Francisco bay.
He was searching for a current that
would bear them away from both. He
found 1t at about 1900 feet altitude.
Then came the delicate manipulation
of the valve cord, on which so many
lives hung. He had watched the drift
of his huge ship through the various
| or IA Of fr
flowed the one that would take them
out of danger. Without ballast or an
chor 1t was absolutely necessary to re-
duce the ascension capacity of the bal
loon from twenty to nine; il must be re-
duced until the carrying capacity exact
ly balanced that of the nine persons in
the basket This must be done gradual
| ly and carefully. While he was doing
this the balloon kept mounting upward.
He struck a balance somewhere up
there, 5000 feet and higher in the air
Then he must come down so carefully
and slowly; the overweight in the bas-
ket must be so slight that after strik-
ing the current that would drift them
southerly the descent must be so gra-
dual that they would be far out Of
| harms way before they dared try to
make a final descent. If they went too
low and met an obstacle they could not
rise above it, for they had no ballast TO
throw overheard. 1t was this he was
doing up there In the air when he drift
ed over Goat island; then another cur
rent took them down over the Morgan
4 oyster beds on the Alameda side Of the
/. bay; another current brought them
across and II was thought they had
|. started safely on their Journey south
ward but nearly opposite San Mateo
another creek-lilSe current caught them
and out they went over the ocean o
short distance, Down. down, they went
toward the water while the Voyagers
somewhat recovered from the first
shock again grew nervous. Down
straight toward that fiat green plain
that looked like a meadow and then
the southeasterly current again took
them up and in a few moments they
We're sweeping over towns and forest
on and on they went, racing with the
wind and leaving the passenger trains
Continued to page fivs.)