Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-29
PICARD AND AIDE
HAD CLOSE CALL
Oxygen Supply Nearly Gone
When Balloon Landed,
Scientist Reveals.
BY WHIT BURNETT.

BY Gable to The Star.
OBER-GURGL, Austria, May 90
Prof. August PiccarS of Brussels Uni
versity rested in this village today and
explained why his tremendous balloon
Is lying on one of the highest noun
tains of Europe.
His explanation to this correspondent
seems quite simple. After 16 hours
in atmospheric heights which no man
ever reached before, the great Gurgl
Peak at the head of the Valley of
Metz, thrust up its gigantic shoulder
and the professor and his 27-year-old
German assistant were brought low.
But their triumph lay in the fact that.
even when they were cracked up in
the ice and snow, they kept on taking
notes and checking their instruments
and today they can claim they have
brought back from the skies technical
knowledge of the earth's upper atmos-
phere hitherto unknown and probably
of incalculable valUe to science.
IT am content with the flight" Prof.
Picard told me today. on arising, hale
and sunburnt after his first sleep since
the take-off at Augsburg Wednesday
morning IF our gas vent hadn't
damned, making it impossible to de-
fate the balloon in order to descend,
We would have landed in good time.
Were Near End Of Rope.
"As it was we were very near the end
of our rope Two hours more and the
oxygen supply would have been ex-
taausted and we would have been dead
men. Our landing On the snow was
lucky, however. We were unhurt. The
instruments are almost all safe and the
aluminium gondola is not irreparably
damaged"
Landing at 9 o'clock at night
the balloonists for the first time opened
the Theoretically sealed, round alumni
mum black and white gondola. Before
their rescue they had spent IA hours In
and out of the balloon. The natural
question as to whether the voyagers had
suffered from extreme cold in their IL
hours in the higher strata above 1l,00O
meters met curious answer.
Our only discomfort" said Prof.
Picard, was too much warmth wren
the sun, at a great height, shone on the
aluminium shell. Our temperature IN
side reached Al Celsius"
This afternoon the reporters Will &C
company Prof. Picard to the balloon.
providing they don't smoke, for one OF
the professors idioSyncracieS IS that ne
cant tolerate cigarettes. He will super
wise the efforts of sturdy Austrian SOL
dicrs to pull the balloon of the glacier
and get it down to lower altltuoe. IN
Ober-Gurgl today, reporters and noun
tain goats are about equal in number.
prof. Picard says he will remain here
until Saturday or Sunday, and then
return to Augsburg. He doesn't plan
any further flights in the near future,
he said.
Tests for Einstein Failed.
Prof. Piccard's chief regret is that
he was unable to fulfill Prof. Einstein's
request for certain conflrmative atmo-
spheric information, not related to rel
ativity. Tests were made, but they were
not successful However, Prof. PICARD
made more than 100 pages Of notes dur
ing the flight, measured the cosmlc rays
discovered by DR.. Millikan, and tested
radiation and atmospheric pressure, all
for the first time at this altitude.
Opposite the Gasthaus, in this high
est village in Europe, rises the cruel
menace of the great Gurgl peaks, where
lies the crumpled, gasleSs hulk OF the
largest free balloon in the world, as big
as a Seven-story house. At sun up re-
porters from Italy Austria and Ger
many were literally Swarmlng up the
craggy canyon, after an all-night train
ride and four-hour automobile ride, to
get an interview at the top of the world.
Besides questioning the occupants OF
the balloon I talked with the ski in
structor, who first sighted the balloon
in the snow at II o'clock Thursday
morning. He was Hans Faulkner, "a.
II saw two men standing by the
fattened bag" he said when 1 skied
over the elder man said: We have had
a lucky landing, but where are we? Is
this Italy, Switzerland or the Tyrol?"
(Copyright, 1919