Chapter XLVII: "the Village of Schwartz-Ach." (6)

So much for perils by sea; but the greatest of all the veteran's dangers was caused by a diabolical trick, the perpetrator of which was never discovered. It was as follows:

In the year 1832, on ascending from Cheltenham, one of those malicious wretches who may be regarded as half fool and half devil, contrived partially to sever the ropes of the car, in such a manner as not to be perceived before the balloon had quited the ground; when receiving, for the first time, the whole weight of the contents, they suddenly gave way. Every thing fell out of the car, the aeronauts just having time to secure a painful and precarious attachment to the hoop. Lightened of its load, the balloon, with frightful velocity, immediately commenced its upward course, and ere Mr. Green could obtain possession of the valve-string, which the first violence of the accident had placed beyond his reach, attained an altitude of upward of ten thousand feet. Their situation was terrific. Clinging to the hoop with desperate retention, not daring to trust any portion of their weight upon the margin of the car, that still remained suspended by a single cord beneath their feet, lest that also might give way, and they should be deprived of their only remaining counterpoise, all they could do was to resign themselves to chance, and endeavor to retain their hold until the exhaustion of the gas should have determined the career of the balloon. To complete the horrors of their situation, the net-work, drawn awry by the awkward and unequal disposition of the weight, began to break about the upper part of the machine--mesh after mesh giving way, with a succession of reports like those of a pistol; while, through the opening thus created, the balloon began rapidly to ooze out, and swelling as it escaped beyond the fissure, presented the singular appearance of a huge hour-glass floating in the upper regions of the sky. After having continued for a considerable length of time in this condition, every moment expecting to be precipitated to the earth by the final detachment of the balloon, at length they began slowly to descend. When they had arrived within about a hundred feet from the ground, the event they had anticipated at length occurred; the balloon, rushing through the opening in the net-work with a tremendous explosion, suddenly made its escape, and they fell to the earth in a state of insensibility, from which with great difficulty, they were eventually recovered.

Apart from the question of dangers, which science, as we have seen, can reduce to a minimum--and apart also from the question of practical utility, of which we do not see much at present, yet of which we know not what may be derived in future--what are the probabilities of improvement in the art of ballooning, aerostation, or the means of traveling through the air in a given direction?

The conditions seem to be these. In order to fly in the air, and steer in a given direction during a given period, it is requisite to take up a buoyancy and a power which shall be greater (and continuously so during the voyage) than needful to sustain its own mechanical weight, together with that of the aeronauts and their various appurtenances; and as much also in excess of these requisitions as shall overcome the adverse action of the wind upon the resisting surface presented by the machine. At present no such power is known which can be used in combination with a balloon, or other gas machine. If we could condense electricity, then the thing might be done; other subtle powers may also be discovered with the progress of science, but we must wait for them before we can fairly make definite voyages in the air, and reduce human flying to a practical utility, or a safe and rational pleasure.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[14]