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Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies
·
Fulgence Marion
7
years,
they
see
men
confiding
themselves
in
a
swinging
car
into
the
immensities
of
space,
what
must
have
been
the
astonishment
of
those
who,
for
the
first
time
since
the
commencement
of
the
world,
beheld
one
of
their
fellow-creatures
rolling
in
space,
without
any
other
assurance
of
safety
than
what
his
still
dim
perception
of
the
laws
of
nature
gave
him?
Why
should
we
be
obliged
here
to
state
that
the
great
discovery
that
stirred
the
spirits
of
men
from
the
one
end
of
Europe
to
the
other,
and
gave
rise
to
hopes
of
such
vast
discoveries,
should
have
failed
in
realising
the
expectations
which
seemed
so
clearly
justified
by
the
first
experiments?
It
is
now
eighty-six
years
since
the
first
aerial
journey
astonished
the
world,
and
yet,
in
1870,
we
are
but
little
more
advanced
in
the
science
than
we
were
in
1783.
Our
age
is
the
most
renowned
for
its
discoveries
of
any
that
the
world
has
seen.
Man
is
borne
over
the
surface
of
the
earth
by
steam;
he
is
as
familiar
as
the
fish
with
the
liquid
element;
he
transmits
his
words
instantaneously
from
London
to
New
York;
he
draws
pictures
without
pencil
or
brush,
and
has
made
the
sun
his
slave.
The
air
alone
remains
to
him
unsubdued.
The
proper
management
of
balloons
has
not
yet
been
discovered.
More
than
that,
it
appears
that
balloons
are
unmanageable,
and
it
is
to
air-vessels,
constructed
more
nearly
upon
the
model
of
birds,
that
we
must
go
to
find
out
the
secret
of
aerial
navigation.
At
present,
as
in
former
times,
we
are
at
the
mercy
of
balloons--globes
lighter
than
the
air,
and
therefore
the
sport
and
the
prey
of
tempests
and
currents.
And
aeronauts,
instead
of
showing
themselves
now
as
the
benefactors
of
mankind,
exhibit
themselves
mainly
to
gratify
a
frivolous
curiosity,
or
to
crown
with
eclat
a
public
fete.
Chapter
II.
Attempts
in
Ancient
Times
to
Fly
in
the
Air.
Before
contemplating
the
sudden
conquest
of
the
aerial
kingdom,
as
accomplished
and
proclaimed
at
the
end
of
the
last
century,
it
is
at
once
curious
and
instructive
to
cast
a
glance
backward,
and
to
examine,
by
the
glimmering
of
ancient
traditions,
the
attempts
which
have
been
made
or
imagined
by
man
to
enfranchise
himself
from
the
attraction
of
the
earth.
“The
greater
number
of
the
arts
and
sciences
can
be
traced
along
a
chronological
ladder
of
great
length:
some,
indeed,
lose
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