Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies

But how to get this enormous air-boat up to the region of hail? This is a minor detail, respecting which Galien is not clear. From the labours of Lana and Galien, with their impossible flying machines, the inventor of the balloon could derive no benefit whatever; nor is his fame to be in the least diminished because many had laboured in the same field before him. Nor can the story of the ovoador, or flying man, a legend very confused, and of which there are many versions, have given to Montgolfier any valuable hints. It appears that a certain Laurent de Guzman, a monk of Rio Janeiro, performed at Lisbon before the king, John V., raising himself in a balloon to a considerable height. Other versions of the story give a different date, and assign the pretended ascent to 1709. The above engraving, extracted from the “Bibliotheque de la Rue de Richelieu,” is an exact copy of Guzman’s supposed balloon. In 1678 a mechanician of Salle, in Maine, named Besnier invented a flying-machine. The machine consisted of four great wings, or paddles, mounted at the extremities of levers, which rested on the shoulders of the man who guided it, and who could move them alternately by means of his hands and feet. The following description of the machine is given in the Journal de Paris by an eye-witness: “The ‘wings’ are oblong frames, covered with taffeta, and attached to the ends of two rods, adjusted on the shoulders The wings work up and down. Those in front are worked by the hands; those behind by the feet, which are connected with the ends of the rods by strings. The movements were such that when the right hand made the right wing descend in front, the left foot made the left wing descend behind; and in like manner the left hand in front and the right foot behind acted together simultaneously. This diagonal action appeared very well contrived; it was the action of most quadrupeds as well as of man when walking; but the contrivance, like others of the same kind, failed in not being fitted with gearing to enable the air traveller to proceed in any other direction than that in which the wind blew him. The inventor first flew down from a stool, then from a table, afterwards from a window, and finally from a garret, from which he passed above the houses in the neighbourhood, and