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In another department there were models of vehicles and vessels worked by steam, and of an air-balloon which might have been constructed by Montgolfier. "Such," said Zee, with an air of meditative wisdom "such were the feeble triflings with nature of our savage forefathers, ere they had even a glimmering perception of the properties of vril!"
For the success of the enterprise it was absolutely necessary to know, almost to a minute, the precise time at which the collision would occur, and Captain Servadac undertook the task, by gentle means or by stern, of extracting the secret from the professor. To Lieutenant Procope himself was entrusted the superintendence of the construction of the montgolfier, and the work was begun at once.
But while the public papers were full of ascents at Avignon, Marseilles, and Paris, it is impossible to describe the vexation of Roziers, when he discovered that Montgolfier's new balloon was not intended to carry passengers, and had not been, from the first, constructed with that view. He suggested a number of alterations, which Montgolfier adopted at once.
It was in the same year that the Montgolfier brothers of Annonay, near Lyons in France, conceived the idea of using hot air for lifting things into the air. They got this idea from watching the smoke curling up the chimney from the heat of the fire beneath. In 1783 they constructed the first successful balloon of which we have any description.
This was the signal which announced the last arrangements and thus dissipated all doubt as to the rising of the balloon, There had during the day been considerable disturbance among the crowd, between the partisans of Charles and Montgolfier; each party extolled its hero, and did everything possible to detract from the merits of the rival inventor.
Full details have been given in this chapter of the monster balloon constructed by M. Nadar; but in 1864 Eugene Godard built one larger yet of the Montgolfier type. Its capacity was nearly half a million cubic feet, while the stove which inflated it stood 18 feet high, and weighed nearly 1,000 pounds. Two free ascents were made without mishap from Cremorne Gardens.
Madame Nadar, whose sang-froid was truly magnificent, grasped two large ropes with her delicate hands. Nadar did the like, but at the same time put his arms round his wife so as to protect her body. I was on one side towards the middle of the sort of hurdle which serves as a balcony. I was on my knees and clinging to two ropes. Montgolfier, Thirion, and Saint Felix were near me.
Seven persons went into the car on this occasion Joseph Montgolfier, Roziers, the Comte de Laurencin, the Comte de Dampierre, the Prince Charles de Ligne, the Comte de Laporte d'Anglifort, and Fontaine, who threw himself into the car when it had already begun to move.
The scientist Saussure, observing the filling of the balloons very carefully, ascertained that it was rarefaction of the air which was responsible for the lifting power, and not the heat in itself, and, owing to the rarefaction of the air at normal temperature at great heights above the earth, the limit of ascent for a balloon of the Montgolfier type was estimated by him at under 9,000 feet.
The first balloon, Montgolfier's, was simply filled with hot air; and it was because Montgolfier exclusively made use of hot air that balloons so filled were named Montgolfiers.
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