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Meusnier's balloon, of course, was never constructed, but his ideas have been of value to aerostation up to the present time. His career ended in the revolutionary army in 1793, when he was killed in the fighting before Mayence, and the King of Prussia ordered all firing to cease until Meusnier had been buried.
The spectators had the pleasure of seeing it rise to a great height, and pass away in the direction of Neuilly, and it is said to have been found at a distance of several leagues, by peasants. However trifling this experiment may appear at first sight, it added a new fact to the science of aerostation. The material employed by the baron was lighter and better than paper.
Once aerostation had been proved possible, many people began the construction of small balloons the wholehole thing was regarded as a matter of spectacles and a form of amusement by the great majority. A certain Baron de Beaumanoir made the first balloon of goldbeaters' skin, this being eighteen inches in diameter, and using hydrogen as a lifting factor.
But since we have seen aerostation, the motive power of elastic vapors, the wonders of modern telegraphy, the destructive explosiveness of gunpowder, of nitro-glycerine, and even of a substance so harmless, unresisting, and inert as cotton, there is little in the way of mechanical achievement which seems hopelessly impossible, and it is hard to restrain the imagination from wandering forward a couple of generations to an epoch when our descendants shall have advanced as far beyond us in physical conquest, as we have marched beyond the trophies erected by our grandfathers.
We will conclude our work with a glance at aerostation as applied to warfare. Scarcely had the first ascents astonished the world, than the more adventurous spirits began to use the new discovery for a thousand purposes directly useful to man.
We will conclude this second part by giving a brief notice of some of those who, in the early days of aerostation, fell martyrs to their devotion to the new cause, and sometimes victims to their own want of foresight and their inexperience. First among these is Pilatre des Roziers, with whose courage and ingenuity our readers are already familiar.
The military authorities have set aside, as a site for an aerostation camp, some twenty-five acres of the park near Rocquencourt. This is one of the loveliest parts, shaded by magnificent trees which, presumably, will have to be sacrificed, since, if left standing, they would certainly interfere with maneuvering with military aeroplanes, dirigibles and balloons.
After special investigation, we find that Joseph Montgolfier was very superior to his brother, and that it is to him principally, if not exclusively, that we owe the invention of aerostation.
But as he was not sufficiently acquainted with the laws of aerostation as to be certain of failure, he had worked on with the determination to seek success, though it must be acknowledged with but faint hopes of finding it. Thus stood matters on the morning when it was finally arranged to launch their great aerial ship, and ascertain whether it would swim.
On a still September afternoon, ascending alone, he steered his aerial ship in an easy and graceful flight over London, from the Crystal Palace to Harrow. The future development of aerostation is necessarily difficult to forecast.
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