Year: 1873

Jules Verne once wrote most entertain
ing book entitled ''Five Weeks in Bal
LOOM" 1t was a strange blending of fact
and fancy, like all this brilliant French
mans works. But it illustrates one point
of special interest now, as the balloon is to
be put on trial as an agent of transporta-
ton. 1t gives a glimpse of the natural
scenery and objects of surprising attrac-
tiveness that it unrolls before the travellers
eye. The railroad can give the traveller no
idea of the natural beauties of the country
he is whirled through. 1t covers him with
dust. 1t jolts him into jelly. 1t makes
every joint in his body ache from its un-
ceasing jar. 1t fills his eyes with cinders,
making reading impossible, and binding
him to whatever fragments of scenery may
be visible from its windows. 1t gives him
mere glances and glimpses of objects in
such broken way that the looking is any
thing but pleasure. And then the railroad
is usually cut through the least interesting
section of the regions it passes through
and were there no obstacles to uninterrupt-
ed vision, there would be little to see. No
one can form the least idea of the natural
scenery of country from riding through
it in a railway car. A steamboat is equally
unfavorable for sightseeing, and thousands
of extensive travellers have traversed con-
tinents without gaining connected or vivid
idea of its surface or its scenery. The
beauty of the globe is only half suspected,
even by those who have travelled most.


The balloon has material advantages over
all other means of transportation 1t is
free from dust and jar and jolt, and annoy
ances of all kinds. 1t has no underground
passages, suggestive of sepulchral terrors.
1t is the easiest of known modes of convey
ance, floating the traveller through the un-
resisting air far above all the annoyances of
the earth But, in addition to this, it gives
him views of the globe he can obtain in no
other way. 1t unrolls the landscape of
State or Continent before his eye like vast
panorama, showing the topography of the
land, the rise and course of the rivers, the
sweep of the landscape, filled with villages
and farms and forests and lakes and hills.
People will pay any price and brave any
peril to reach the summit of Mount Wash
ington or Nevada or Mount Blanc, that they
may see the globe from higher level, and
catch glimpse of a whole district as it lies
out In broad expanse of territory, unified
and complete, like thing of art and they
never tire of telling what inspiration the
view from a mountain peak affords, and
what a revelation of beauty and magnif-
cence it gives. The balloon lifts the aero
naut without effort to twice the height of
any mountain on the globe, and gives him
a view of intoxicating loveliness and thrill
ing sublimity.


Ar artist who had studied the scenery of
the White Hills for dozen years told us
that he had no idea of the grandeur of that
region, of its splendid unity and its pic
turesque effect until he was carried over
the State in balloon, from which he look
ed down on its granite peaks, its romantic
forests, its broken fields, its clear blue
streams, its waving grain-felds, its busy
villages, set like jewels in emerald, like so
many figures in gorgeous coloring, laid on
canvas stretching from the ocean to the
Green Mountains in Vermont Before that,
he had seen the State in detail, by piece
meal, at close hand; he had seen it as men
see it but then he saw it as it spread out
before the Divine Artist, who looked down
upon it as thing of super-sensual beauty,
picture set in frame of golden sunlight
beneath canopy of stars.


We shall never know the full glory of the
globe until we are able to look down upon
it from above, and see it as it lies under a
sea of golden sunlight. Sailing across con-
tinents and oceans. without particle of ia
tigue, like reclining on a couch at home, all
the kingdoms of the earth spread out below
like a gorgeous panorama, the body and
mind are at their highest point of activity,
and the enjoyment is intensified thousand
fold Ordinary modes of travel are merely
convenient; the balloon is aesthetic, 1t TAP
peals to the eye. 1t ministers to the sense
of beauty. 1t turns the planet into sue
cession of pictures, and makes every pill
grim an artist in thought and joy.


PROFESSOR JOHN WISE.


This distinguished aeronaut was born in
Lancaster, Pa, on the oath of February,
1908. AT an early age he was sent to the