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Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies
·
Fulgence Marion
5
“Scientific
discoveries
in
general,”
says
Arago,
“even
those
from
which
men
expect
the
most
advantage,
like
those
of
the
compass
and
the
steam-engine,
were
greeted
at
first
with
contempt,
or
at
the
best
with
indifference.
Political
events,
and
the
fortunes
of
armies
monopolised
almost
entirely
the
attention
of
the
people.
But
to
this
rule
there
are
two
exceptions--the
discoveries
of
America
and
of
aerostatics,
the
advents
of
Columbus
and
of
Montgolfier.”
It
is
not
here
our
duty
to
inquire
how
it
happened
that
the
discoveries
made
by
these
two
personages
are
classed
together.
Air-travelling
may
be
as
unproductive
of
actual
good
to
society
as
filling
the
belly
with
the
“east
wind”
is
to
the
body,
while
every
one
knows
something
of
the
extent
to
which
the
discovery
of
Columbus
has
influenced
the
character,
the
civilisation,
the
destinies,
in
short,
of
the
human
race.
We
are
speaking
at
present
of
the
known
and
well-attested
fact,
that
the
discovery
of
America
and
the
discovery
of
the
method
of
traversing
space
by
means
of
balloons--however
they
may
differ
in
respect
of
results
to
man--rank
equally
in
this,
that
of
all
other
discoveries
these
two
have
attracted
the
greatest
amount
of
attention,
and
given,
in
their
respective
eras,
the
greatest
impulse
to
popular
feeling.
Let
the
reader
recall
the
marks
of
enthusiasm
which
the
discovery
of
the
islands
on
the
east
coast
of
America
excited
in
Andalusia,
in
Catalonia,
in
Aragon
and
Castile--let
him
read
the
narrative
of
the
honours
paid
by
town
and
village,
not
only
to
the
hero
of
the
enterprise,
but
even
to
his
commonest
sailors,
and
then
let
him
search
the
records
of
the
epoch
for
the
degree
of
sensation
produced
by
the
discovery
of
aeronautics
in
France,
which
stands
in
the
same
relationship
to
this
event
as
that
in
which
Spain
stands
to
the
other.
The
processions
of
Seville
and
Barcelona
are
the
exact
prototypes
of
the
fetes
of
Lyons
and
Paris.
In
France,
in
1783,
as
in
Spain
two
centuries
previously,
the
popular
imagination
was
so
greatly
excited
by
the
deeds
performed,
that
it
began
to
believe
in
possibilities
of
the
most
unlikely
description.
In
Spain,
the
conquestadores
and
their
followers
believed
that
in
a
few
days
after
they
had
landed
on
American
soil,
they
would
have
gathered
as
much
gold
and
precious
stones,
as
were
then
possessed
by
the
richest
European
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