The Dominion of the Air [35]
Moreover, some would endeavour to throw the machine upward, while others as strenuously strove to keep it down, and at last the former party prevailed, and the balloon, being fairly cast into the air, grazed a neighbouring chimney and then plunged into an adjacent plot, not, however, before the distracted traveller had flung away all his little stock of sand. There now was brief opportunity for free action, and to the first bystander who came running up Wise gave the task of holding the car in check. To the next he handed out his instruments, his coat, and also his boots, hoping thus to get away; but his chance had not yet come, for once again the crowd swarmed round him, keeping him prisoner with good-natured but mistaken interference, and drowning his voice with excited shouting. Somehow, by word and gesture, he gave his persecutors to understand that he wished to speak, and then he begged them only to give him a chance, whereupon the crowd fell back, forming a ring, and leaving only one man holding the car. It was a moment of suspense, for Wise calculated that he had only parted with some eighteen pounds since his first ineffectual start from the filling ground; but it was enough, and in another moment he was sailing up clear above the crowd. So great, as has been already shewn, is often the effect of parting with the last few pounds of dead weight in a well-balanced balloon.
Such was the first "send off" of the future great balloonist, destined to become the pioneer in aeronautics on the far side of the Atlantic. The balloon ascended to upwards of a mile, floating gradually away, but at its highest point it reached a conflict of currents, causing eddies from which Wise escaped by a slight decrease of weight, effected by merely cutting away the wreaths of flowers that were tied about his car. A further small substitute for ballast he extemporised in the metal tube inserted in the neck of his fabric, and this he cast out when over the breadth of the Delaware, and he describes it as falling with a rustling sound, and striking the water with a splash plainly heard at more than a mile in the sky. After an hour and a quarter the balloon spontaneously and steadily settled to earth.
An ascent carried out later in the same summer led to a mishap, which taught the young aeronaut an all-important lesson. Using the same balloon and the same mode of inflation, he got safely and satisfactorily away from his station in the town of Lebanon, Pa., and soon found himself over a toll gate in the open country, where the gate keeper in banter called up to him for his due. To this summons Wise, with heedless alacrity, responded in a manner which might well have cost him dear. He threw out a bag of sand to represent his toll, and, though he estimated this at only six pounds, it so greatly accelerated his ascent that he shortly found himself at a greater altitude than he ever after attained. He passed through mist into upper sunshine, where he experienced extreme cold and ear-ache, at which time, seeking the natural escape from such trouble, he found to his dismay that the valve rope was out of reach. Thus he was compelled to allow the balloon to ascend yet higher, at its own will; and then a terrible event happened.
By mischance the neck of his balloon, which should have been open, was out of reach and folded inwards in such a way as to prevent the free escape of the gas, which, at this great altitude, struggled for egress with a loud humming noise, giving him apprehensions of an accident which very shortly occurred, namely, the bursting of the lower part of his balloon with a loud report. It happened, however, that no extreme loss of gas ensued, and he commenced descending with a speed which, though considerable, was not very excessive. Still, he was eager to alight in safety, until a chance occurrence made him a second time that afternoon guilty of an act of boyish impetuosity. A party of volunteers firing a salute in his honour as he neared the ground, he instantly flung out papers, ballast, anything he could lay
Such was the first "send off" of the future great balloonist, destined to become the pioneer in aeronautics on the far side of the Atlantic. The balloon ascended to upwards of a mile, floating gradually away, but at its highest point it reached a conflict of currents, causing eddies from which Wise escaped by a slight decrease of weight, effected by merely cutting away the wreaths of flowers that were tied about his car. A further small substitute for ballast he extemporised in the metal tube inserted in the neck of his fabric, and this he cast out when over the breadth of the Delaware, and he describes it as falling with a rustling sound, and striking the water with a splash plainly heard at more than a mile in the sky. After an hour and a quarter the balloon spontaneously and steadily settled to earth.
An ascent carried out later in the same summer led to a mishap, which taught the young aeronaut an all-important lesson. Using the same balloon and the same mode of inflation, he got safely and satisfactorily away from his station in the town of Lebanon, Pa., and soon found himself over a toll gate in the open country, where the gate keeper in banter called up to him for his due. To this summons Wise, with heedless alacrity, responded in a manner which might well have cost him dear. He threw out a bag of sand to represent his toll, and, though he estimated this at only six pounds, it so greatly accelerated his ascent that he shortly found himself at a greater altitude than he ever after attained. He passed through mist into upper sunshine, where he experienced extreme cold and ear-ache, at which time, seeking the natural escape from such trouble, he found to his dismay that the valve rope was out of reach. Thus he was compelled to allow the balloon to ascend yet higher, at its own will; and then a terrible event happened.
By mischance the neck of his balloon, which should have been open, was out of reach and folded inwards in such a way as to prevent the free escape of the gas, which, at this great altitude, struggled for egress with a loud humming noise, giving him apprehensions of an accident which very shortly occurred, namely, the bursting of the lower part of his balloon with a loud report. It happened, however, that no extreme loss of gas ensued, and he commenced descending with a speed which, though considerable, was not very excessive. Still, he was eager to alight in safety, until a chance occurrence made him a second time that afternoon guilty of an act of boyish impetuosity. A party of volunteers firing a salute in his honour as he neared the ground, he instantly flung out papers, ballast, anything he could lay