The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-09-23
M B N :, w o M EN
 A ND T H IN c s

! ~~AANNAA4
 the moon." This will be the appropriate
 song for Miss Birmingham to sing Satur-
 day and for some days to come, for the
 Dig nationwide balloon event is staged
 to begin on that afternoon.
 |
 | We get the balloon from the French word balloon, which simply means a large ball' first used to describe a large inflated ball of leather, which was tossed to and 1 fro by either hand or foot, the hand being defended by guard A line from Hey
 wood speaks of Iris easier sport than the balloon"
 But it's not the term used in games, chemistry, architecture, pyrotechnics, 1 comic engraving or weaving about which wish to speak now. as my desire is to limit it to a bag or hollow vessel filled
 with hydrogen gas or heated air, or any other gaseous fluid lighter than common air. and thus caused to rise or float ih the atmosphere
 Neither am I going to try and get scien- ttific, for when you get into that field it's mo mans land for me but I will state here that according to the principle of Archimedes, bodies immersed in fluid are buoyed up with force equivalent to the weight of the fluid displaced by them. If their own weight is not sufficient to counterbalance this force that is, if they are lighters than the fluid they rise up with force equal to the difference of the weight of the displaced fluid and of their own weight
 Now, all my life it has been hard for me to get any definite idea in my mind from definitions. I like something con- crete, and so believing that there are others in my fix, wnr say that balloon which consists of an ntegument inclos- ing gas within it, will rise in air the same way that cork rises in water, provided that the weight of the whole be less than that of an equal volume of air If one, for instance occupies as much space as 100 pounds of air. but weigh itself, covering, gas and appendages, 500 pounds. it will be impelled upwards with a force of 400 pounds Q. U. E. D.
 In modern history the first mention of a balloon occurs in Minstres history of Lyons, France, in which it is recorded that an aerostat carrying several persons descended into that city during the latter part of the reign of Charlemagne C742- S1D. They were charged with being sor- cerers and condemned to death; but as fshy as this sounds today, I knew some one would put in a claim for the Chinese, and I was not surprised to find that it was generally believed that some sort of a balloon was sent up at Peking at the coronation of Emperor Flo Kien in 15oe
 
 But the term "balloon" in the sense we now use the word in aerostation, was first used in connection with the inven- tion of the brothers Montgolfier in 17sS, when their large paper balloon inflated with the smoke and gases from burning straw and wool rose to a height of 900 feet. It was Jacques and Etienne, sons of Joseph Michel Montgolfier, a large and celebrated paper-maker of Annonay. town about forty miles from Lyons, to whom the invention of the man-carrying balloon is due.
 There are some mighty interesting facts and possibly legends mixed up in the man ner by which they gave to the world the balloon. The brothers had observed the suspension of clouds in the atmos- phere, and it occurred to them if they could inclose any vapor of the nature of a cloud in a large and very light bag. it might rise and carry the bag into the air. Towards the end of 17S2 they inflated bags with smoke from fire placed un- derneath, and found that either the smoke or some vapor emitted from the fire did ascend and carry the bag with It.
 It Is said that we Americans live out of tin cans and paper bags. but few of us bundle-toters knew that the paper bag which we carry home and carelessly toss aside was the means of giving to the world a new mode of transportation. Lod by their avocation the brothers Mont golfer. these famous paper-makers. fixed upon paper as the most fitting material for the purpose of their experiments, but found that paper was an unsuitable cov- ering from the inflammable gas which they sought to confine.
 Tt might be we'll to state here that the germ of the invention of balloons Is to be found in the discovery by Cavendish, in IT'S, of the remarkable lightness of hy- droben gas 0hen called inflammable air). It was, however. pr. Black, an Edinburgh chemist, who suggested the use of hydro gems for balloons, an idea shortly after ward put into practical use by Tiberius Cavalio in the form of small soap bubbles filled with that gas. pr. Black had sug- gested to Dr. Munro the professor of anatomy, to give him some thin animal membrane for the experiment, but for some reason or other it was never made; but Cavallo. after blowing soap bubbles filled with hydrogen gas. in 1772. filled swines' bladders and paper bags with gas, but found the former too heavy and the latter too porus. and only the soap bubbles floated into space
 
 As matter of fact. it was the read Air that started the Montgolfier broth CTS on their road which ended in success. for abandoning ordinary paper as unsuit-