smoke and hot air, filled a silk bag with
rarefied air, and publicly at Avignon exhibited
its powers of ascension.  The secret was found
at last.  A larger balloon rose six hundred, a
third one a thousand, and a fourth six thousand
feet.  Directly it was proved that a balloon
could lift five hundred pounds weight, the idea
of its being steered by men suggested itself
to the clever paper-makers.  They exhibited a
large elliptical balloon before the members of
the Academy of Science in a garden in the
Faubourg St. Germain, and a larger one still
before the king and royal family at Versailles.
The first aëronauts were in this balloon, and
they consisted of a sheep, a fowl, and a duck.

M. Moutgolfier, actuated by the success of
these experiments, determined to push them
still further.  The power of these new aërostatic
machines, and their very gradual descent in
falling to the ground, had already showed
that they were capable of transporting people
through the air with all imaginable safety; and
this fact was further confirmed by the experiment
already mentioned.  When M. Montgolfier,
therefore, proposed to make a new
aërostatic machine, of a firmer and better
construction than the former, M. Pilatre de Rozier
offered himself to be the first aërial adventurer.

The new air-ship, constructed at Paris,
in a garden in the Faubourg St. Antoine,
was shaped like a pear, forty-eight feet in
diameter and seventy-four in height, and
was emblazoned with heraldic and astronomical
symbols.  The weight of the whole, firegrate
and all, was eighteen hundred pounds.
The first ascent was in October, 1783.  M. de
Rozier was as daring in venturing in the
new element as the hero who first put to sea;
but he did not care to be in those airy solitudes
above the towers of Paris more than nine
minutes, and then he safely descended to receive
his laurels.  In his next ascent, M. Pilate
determined to cut the apron-strings and walk
alone.  He would have no ropes to keep the
balloon moored to the earth.  On the 21st of
November, 1783, he and the Marquis d'Arlandes,
a notoriety-seeking man of quality, made a voyage
of five miles in twenty-five minutes, the
balloon narrowly escaping destruction by fire.

M. Montgolfier's restless mind soon struck
out the idea of filling the balloon with gas, an
idea which he in vain attempted to keep secret.

The first experiment was made by two
brothers, Messrs. Robert and M. Charles, the
latter a professor of experimental philosophy.
They caused a gummed lute-string bag, filled
with gas, to traverse twenty-five miles in
three-quarters of an hour.  The two brothers
then boldly ascended in a balloon filled with
gas, in December, 1783.  After a successful
journey of twenty-seven miles, Mr. Robert
again ascended alone, just after sunset.  He
rose about ten thousand feet high, came into a
cold region of almost colourless clouds, and
was driven about by contrary currents.

The next step was to try and discover
some means of guiding the still unruly
air-ships.   M. Jean Pierre Blanchard, a man
of inventive genius, who had for many years
been trying to fly by mechanical means,
resolved to add wings to the balloon; but in the
first attempt he was frustrated by the impetuosity
of a young gentleman, who insisted, right
or wrong, on ascending along with him. In the
scuffle which ensued on this occasion the wings
were destroyed.

Messrs. Charles and Robert, who took up this
theory, made an ascent in an oblong spheroid
balloon, twenty-six feet long.  The wings were
made in the shape of an umbrella without the
handle, to the top of which a stick was fastened
parallel to the aperture of the umbrella.  Five
of these were disposed round the boat, which
was near seventeen feet in length.  They made
a bold flight this time of one hundred and fifty
miles, and only descended at last because darkness
came on.  The average speed was twenty-
four miles an hour, and they sensibly concluded
that if the wind had been only half as strong,
their oars would have given them greater power
of guidance.  They were at one time in great
danger among thunder-clouds.

Ingenuity was next directed to lessen the
expense of aëronautic machines by some contrivance
to ascend without throwing out ballast, and
to descend without losing any of the inflammable
air.  The first attempt of this kind was made by
the Duke de Chartres, who, on the 15th of July,
1784, ascended with the two brothers, Charles
and Robert, from the park of St. Cloud.  The
balloon was of an oblong form, made to ascend
with its longest diameter horizontally, and
measured fifty-five feet in length and twenty-
four in breadth.  It contained within it a smaller
balloon, filled with common air; by blowing
into which common air with a pair of bellows
it was supposed that the machine would
become sufficiently heavy to descend.  By the
inflation of the internal bag, the inflammable
air in the external one would be condensed into
a smaller space, and thus become heavier.

Their voyage proved a failure.  The balloon
was beaten about by an upper-air whirlwind,
and got almost wrecked in an ocean of shapeless
clouds.  The interior balloon, being cut,
fell down and jammed up the aperture of the
larger balloon, so that it threatened to burst.
In their dire extremity, the Duke of Chartres
drew his sword and cut great gashes, seven feet
long, in the lower balloon.  It then descended
safely, but on the very edge of a lake.

The success of the scheme being thus rendered
dubious, another method was thought of.  This
was to put a small aërostatic machine with
rarefied air under an inflammable-air balloon,
but at such a distance that the inflammable air of
the latter might be perfectly out of the reach
of the fire used for inflating the former; and
thus, by increasing or diminishing the fire in
the small machine, the absolute weight of the
whole would be considerably diminished or
augmented.  This scheme was unhappily put in
execution by the celebrated M. Pilatre de Rozier,
and another gentleman named M. Romaine.