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To return to the interesting sights of my boyhood, I have some recollection of the Exhibition of 1862, but can recall more vividly a visit to the Crystal Palace towards the end of the following year, when I there saw the strange house-like oar of the "Giant" balloon in which Nadar, the photographer and aeronaut, had lately made, with his wife and others, a memorable and disastrous aerial voyage.
"The Giant" first gave a preliminary demonstration of his power by taking up, for a cable's length, a living freight of some thirty individuals, and then, at 5.10 p.m., started on its second free voyage, with nine souls on board, among them again being a lady, in the person of Madame Nadar.
Many dangerous voyages of thrilling interest have been undertaken since this ascent of Monsieur Nadar. We shall just give a brief account of two of these, which occurred at a comparatively recent date, to show the reader that men are not to be deterred by the misfortunes of predecessors from prosecuting inquiries and experiments in this field.
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.
Monsieur Nadar, a photographer of Paris, was the enthusiastic and persevering aeronaut who called it into being, and encountered the perils of its ascents, from which he did not emerge scatheless, as we shall see.
Besides being an experimental voyager in cloudland, Monsieur Nadar started a newspaper named L'Aeronaute, in which he gives an account of the "Giant," and his reasons for constructing it. These latter were peculiar.
What a strange fellow is Nadar, Although, between ourselves, as far As art's concerned he knoweth naught. What a strange fellow is Nadar, Photographer and aeronaut! To guide the course of a balloon His mind conceived the wondrous screw. Some day he hopes unto the moon To guide the course of a balloon.
Had the ancients possessed the means of transmitting such definite sounds, the civilised world must have responded in sympathetic notes at the distance of many ages. In the MEMOIRES DU GEANT of M. Nadar, published in 1864, the author says: 'These last fifteen years I have amused myself in thinking there is nothing to prevent a man one of these days from finding a way to give us a daguerreotype of sound the phonograph something like a box in which melodies will be fixed and kept, as images are fixed in the dark chamber. It is also on record that, before Edison had published his discovery to the world, M. Charles Cros deposited a sealed packet at the Academie des Sciences, Paris, giving an account of an invention similar to the phonograph.
At length, in 1863, thanks to the efforts of Nadar, a society of "heavier than air" was founded in Paris. There the inventors could experiment with the machines, of which many were patented.
Thus Shanks's pony was the only means of locomotion. In the earlier days my father accompanied me on a few of those expeditions, but he soon grew tired of them, particularly as his health became affected by the siege diet. We were together, however, when Gambetta took his departure on October 7, ascending from the Place Saint Pierre in a balloon constructed by Nadar.
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