Weather balloon

“ Birds are certainly not able to maintain themselves at such elevations.
"It is notable that the atmosphere, which was of a perfect purity near the earth, was grey and misty above our heads, and the beautiful blue sky seen from the surface did not exist for us, although the weather was calm and serene, and the day the most beautiful that could be. The sun did not seem dazzling to us, and its heat was diminished owing to our elevation.
"At half-past eleven, the balloon was no longer visible from Hamburg. ”

“ In the first place the colour of the balloon is distinctly protective. The golden or yellowish tinge harmonises well with the daylight, even in gloomy weather, while at night-time it blends excellently with the moonlight. For effective observations a high altitude is undesirable. At a height of 600 feet the horizon is about 28 miles from the observer, as compared with the 3 miles constituting the range of vision from the ground over perfectly flat country. ”

“ Not less than twenty men were required to move it, and they were obliged to use all their skill, and every precaution, not to destroy it. No balloon had ever given so much trouble. On the 11th of September the weather improved, and the balloon was entirely completed and prepared for the first experiment. ”

“ Our longing gaze followed it behind the dark clouds in the horizon, whose edges it tipped with a glorious purple. Its last rays shone on us, and then came a bluish-grey twilight. Suddenly we are enveloped in a dense fog. We look around, above us. Everything has disappeared in the mist. The balloon itself is no longer visible. We can see nothing except the ropes which suspend us, and these are only visible for a few feet above our heads, when they lose themselves in the fog. We are alone with our wickerwork house in an unfathomable vault. ”

“ The very strong wind which arose immediately before our departure, had driven us down to tee ground many times, making us fear for the safety of our oars, &c., when we resolved to throw over as much ballast as would enable us to rise against the wind. The ballast, including from 70 to 80 lbs. of provisions, was thrown over, and then we rose so rapidly that all the objects around were instantly passed and were very soon lost to view. The swelling form of our balloon told us that the gas inside had expanded under the heat of the sun and the lessening density of the surrounding air. ”

“ As we were thrown upon our backs at the moment when the balloon took such a sudden start out of the water and bore us with such swiftness to those high regions, the cold seized us suddenly, and we found ourselves covered all at once with a coating of ice. ”

“ The expansion and contraction which romantic gentlemen fancied took place in the size of their heads, does really take place in the balloon, according as it passes from a cloud of one temperature into that of another.
We are now nearly three miles high. Nothing is to be seen but pale air above—around—on all sides, with floating clouds beneath. How should you like to descend in a parachute?—to be dangled by a long line from the bottom of the car, and suddenly to be "let go," and to dip at once clean down through those gray-blue and softly rose-tinted clouds, skimming so gently beneath us? ”

“ It knows better than we, and here we are, returning to places that we had expected never to see again!”
The surface of the country, which had looked so flat and level when they were coming, now seemed tossed and uneven, like the ocean-billows after a storm; a long succession of hillocks, that had scarcely settled to their places yet, indented the desert; the wind blew furiously, and the balloon fairly flew through the atmosphere. ”

“ It was to accommodate sixty persons to be chosen by the academics, who should stay in it for several months should rise to all possible elevations, pass through all climates in all seasons, make scientific observations, &c. This balloon, penetrating deserts inaccessible by other means of travel, and visiting places which travellers have never penetrated, would be of immense use in the science of geography: and when under the line, if the heat near the earth should be inconvenient, the aeronauts would, of course, easily rise to elevations where the temperature is equal and agreeable. ”

“ The tempests of the tropics develop with a rapidity equalled only by their violence. A second flash of lightning rent the darkness, and was followed by a score of others in quick succession. The sky was crossed and dotted, like the zebra’s hide, with electric sparks, which danced and flickered beneath the great drops of rain.
“We have delayed too long,” exclaimed the doctor; “we must now pass through a zone of fire, with our balloon filled as it is with inflammable gas!”
“But let us descend, then! let us descend!” urged Kennedy. ”

“ Oh! the balloon, the great balloon, It left Vauxhall one Monday at noon, And every one said we should hear of it soon With news from Aleppo or Scanderoon. But very soon after folks changed their tune: "The netting had burst—the silk—the shalloon;— It had met with a trade-wind—an awful monsoon— It was blown out to sea—it was blown to the moon— They ought to have put off their journey till June; Sure none but a donkey, a goose, or baboon Would go up in November in any balloon!" ”

“ Suddenly we bound above the cloud, and all is warm sunshine. Below, the thick, glistening, down-white clouds stretch away right and left in heavy folds; and on this great white surface lies, twenty or thirty yards off, the clear, sharp-cut shadow of our balloon, perfect in every part. Above, the sky is deep and blue, flecked in a place or two with tiny streaks of cloud, which, Mr. Spencer tells us, must be 20,000 feet from the earth. We ourselves have not quite reached 8,000 feet. ”

“ We have also pictures in which the balloon is seen in almost every phase of adventure—sweeping through the clouds, plodding through the snow, cruising amongst the stars by night, exploding in the sky, plunging into the sea, dragging on the ground, caught in the trees, stranded amongst the sheepfolds, or tumbling upon the coast and struggling madly to escape the pursuing billows. ”

“ Looking up through the open appendix, I can see the interior of the balloon, the valve-rope hanging in the centre, and watch the valve open and close at the top.
We are now traveling with the wind at a speed of forty miles an hour, but we feel no motion whatever. The hills, the meadows, the hamlets, rush toward us in a mad race, as if driven by the mighty hand of God. ”

“ Of the increased coldness which you feel on passing from a bright cloud into a dark one, the balloon is quite as sensitive as you can be; and, probably, much more so, for it produces an immediate change of altitude. ”

“ Unhappily, the balloon, like the fancied inspiration of the poet, goes where the wind guides it; this every one knows; while the steam-engine, like prose, goes straight upon its road. Green and his balloon were soon overlooking Paris and all its horizon; long trails of sand, ballast that he threw over to raise himself higher, streaked the heavens with their white tracks, proving, by the time it took them to descend to the earth, the hight to which the intrepid aeronaut had mounted in a few minutes. ”

“ And, seeing that air diminishes in density the higher we ascend, the balloon can rise only to that stratum of air of the same density as the air it contains. As the warm air cools it gently descends. Again, as the atmosphere is always moving in currents more or less strong, the balloon follows the direction of the current of the stratum of air in which it finds itself. ”

“ But the same wind is driving us on, and we hope to keep out of its reach, even if we have to rise up in the heavens above it.
“If our balloon obeys as it should, we will soon have some fun,” says the captain, as we reach the first trees of a thick forest.
The “Rolla” is so sensitive that by merely hauling in a few yards of the guide-rope, we gently descend on the tops of the trees, lightly skipping from one to the other; we brush by an elm, a poplar, or an ash, and as we pass, pick their fresh green leaves. ”

“ The chief danger attending a balloon journey in a high wind, supposing no injury has been sustained in filling and launching, results not so much from impact with the ground on alighting as from the subsequent almost inevitable dragging along the ground. The grapnels, spurning the open, will often obtain no grip save in a hedge or tree, and even then large boughs will be broken through or dragged away, releasing the balloon on a fresh career which may, for a while, increase in mad impetuosity as the emptying silk offers a deeper hollow for the wind to catch. ”

“ Up rose the balloon, until it climbed to about five hundred feet, but with its ballast gone it was like a kite without a tail—a wild balloon at the mercy of the wind. That was a sight you did not soon forget! All hands were on deck staring up with bated breath—a few tried to shout advice, but the gale drowned out their voices and the boy in the basket was far too busy hanging on for his life to heed us. ”

“ On the morning of the 26th of August, the day before the ascent was to be made, the balloon was visited at daybreak, and found to be in a promising state. At two o’clock on the following morning its constructors began to make preparations to transport it to the Champ de Mars, from which place it was to be let loose. Skilled workmen were employed in its removal, and every precaution was taken that the gas with which it was charged should not be allowed to escape. In the meantime the excitement of the people about this wonderful structure was rising to the highest pitch. ”

“ His balloon was of the ordinary spherical shape, made of the best oiled silk, about 520 yards of which were used in its construction. It was filled with hydrogen gas, and provided with car, oars, and wings. The car consisted simply of a wooden platform surrounded by a breast high railing, and the oars and wings were intended, the one to check, by a vertical motion, the rapidity of descent, and the other to act as sails when becalmed in the upper regions of cloudland. ”

“ It should not be supposed that the improved type of observation balloon now in use in such large numbers provides any unusual amount of ease or comfort, since it is also prey to the wind and does a great deal of swinging about as well as jerking when the wind is more than 15 or 20 miles an hour. ”

“ After the balloon and the car were in equilibrium, we threw over 19 lbs. of ballast, and we rose in the midst of silence, arising from the emotion and surprise felt on all sides.
“Nothing will ever equal that moment of joyous excitement which filled my whole being when I felt myself flying away from the earth. ”

“ The wind still appeared to be rushing up past us at a fearful rate, and, to add to the horror, we came among the still expiring discharge of the fireworks which floated in the air, so that little bits of exploded cases and touch-paper, still incandescent, attached themselves to the cordage of the balloon and were blown into sparks.... I presume we must have been upwards of a mile from the earth.... ”

“ The rapid climb of the first balloon could be attributed to a vertical air current, or to an air layer of variable density, or both. A balloon often develops leaks at high altitudes and then descends to an intermediate altitude where the loss of gas and the denser atmosphere cause it to hover. ”

“ There-upon aids carry it toward an extremity of the open space in the direction from which the wind happens to be blowing, and it is there that the order: "Let go all!" is given. In this way the balloon has the entire open space to cross before reaching the trees or other obstructions which may be opposite and toward which the wind would naturally carry it. So it has space and time to rise high enough to pass over them. Moreover, the ascensional force of the balloon is regulated accordingly: it is very little if the wind be light; it is more if the wind be stronger. ”

“ As it was, so well was the machine ballasted, that the only effect of our being on the one side made the balloon incline a little in that direction. The winds, although very considerable, caused us no uneasiness, and we only knew the swiftness of our progress through the air by the rapidity with which the villages seemed to fly away from under our feet; so that it seemed, from the tranquillity with which we moved, that we were borne along by the diurnal movement of the globe. Often we wished to descend, in order to learn what the people were crying to us. ”

“ The wind was very high, so, to counteract its effects as far as lay in my power, I ascended alone, with two hundred pounds additional buoyancy. I was at a height of five hundred metres when three successive gusts dashed me to the ground with such violence that several portions of the car were smashed to bits. Each time the balloon darted up again with so much force that sixty-four men—thirty-two at each guy-rope—were dragged to some distance. Had the guys been made fast to grapnels, as had been suggested to me, they must infallibly have given way. ”

“ It is absurd to talk of guiding balloons. How will you set about it? How is it possible that a balloon—say, for instance, like the Flesselles, whose diameter measures 120 feet—can resist and manoeuvre against opposing winds or currents of air? It would require a power equal to 400 horses for the sails of a ship to struggle on equal terms with the wind. ”

“ The mighty balloon floated on; sometimes the clouds allowed a view into a great distance, then the clouds closed again so that it seemed to the aeronauts as if the balloon were floating through the middle of a milky lake. ”

“ Standing on an open heath on a gusty day, we may often note the rhythmic buffeting of the wind, resembling the assault of rolling billows of air. The evidence of these billows has been actually traced far aloft in balloon travel, when aeronauts, looking down on a wind-swept surface of cloud, have observed this surface to be thrown into a series of rolls of vapour, which were but vast and veritable waves of air. ”