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Here, also, officers walked about restlessly, glancing at their watches. They, too, were glad that the mist continued. It meant no wind. When the telegraph did speak it was with another message from some aerostatic officer, saying, "Still favorable," which was taken at once to Lanstron, who was with the staff chiefs around the big table.
Are you interested in the progress of aerostatic science?" He spoke with icy coldness, and I asked myself with whom I had to do. "Monsieur," continued he, "nothing new has been invented since the days of the philosopher Charles.
These services were the duty of military engineers, naval engineers, or ship-builders, artillerists, both military and naval, engineers of bridges and highways, geographical engineers, and engineers of mines, and to them were added the service of the pupils of the school of aerostation, which GUYTON MORVEAU had caused to be established at Meudon, for the purpose of forming the aerostatic company destined for manoeuvring air-balloons, applied to the art of war, as was seen at Maubeuge, Fleurus, Aix-la-Chapelle, &c.
By means of pigeon letter-carriers and air-balloons, they were always able to maintain a partial though one-sided and imperfect communication with the provinces, and the aerostatic art was developed and brought to perfection on this occasion in a manner which had never before been considered possible.
In the month of September, 1850, I arrived at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. My passage through the principal cities of Germany, had been brilliantly marked by aerostatic ascensions; but, up to this day, no inhabitant of the Confederation had accompanied me, and the successful experiments at Paris of Messrs. Green, Godard, and Poitevin, had failed to induce the grave Germans to attempt aerial voyages.
It was of no use, therefore, to think any longer of a kite; and the subject was at length dismissed from their minds. It is scarce possible to talk of a paper kite, without thinking of that other and greater aerostatic contrivance a balloon. Karl had thought of it, long before this time; and so had Caspar, just as long: for the kite had suggested it simultaneously to the minds of both.
"Yes, past a wall of bayonets?" "When not even a soldier in uniform is allowed to move away from his command without a pass?" "By wireless?" "Perhaps by telepathy!" "Unless," said the chief of the aerostatic division, grinning, "Bouchard lends them the use of our own wires through the capital and around by the neutral countries across the Brown frontier!"
"He might, through the leak," said the chief aerostatic officer, who considered that many of his gallant subordinates had lost their lives through Bouchard's inefficiency. "Perhaps Clarissa Eileen has already telepathically wigwagged it to him." To lose your temper at a staff council is most unbecoming. Turcas would have kept his if hit in the back by a fool automobilist.
There was no question of facing the wind, for it was more cruel than the fierce breath of an open furnace, searing the naked flesh like a flame. All the morning the air had hung in perfect poise, but some change of temperature away out over one of the rival oceans had upset the aerostatic balance, and the wind tore through this gap like the torrent below a broken reservoir.
Etienne Montgolfier has left us a description of this first balloon. "The aerostatic machine," he says, "was constructed of cloth lined with paper, fastened together on a network of strings fixed to the cloth. It was spherical; its circumference was 110 feet, and a wooden frame sixteen feet square held it fixed at the bottom.
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