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glad to hear the good news, but still more surprised at the terms in
which it was conveyed; the little that Griffith had learned at school
he had almost contrived to lose altogether in the eight or nine years
that had elapsed since he had left it. He seemed to ignore the very
existence of such contrivances as syntax and orthography; and I
really had grave doubts as to whether he was competent to
undertake even an official situation in S—— House.
These doubts were not immediately resolved. Members of
parliament, secure in their seats, are not precisely so anxious to
perform as they sometimes are ready to promise when their seats
seem sliding from under them. It was very nearly two years before
Griffith received any fruit from his electioneering labors, during
which time he had been leading a life of lounging, do-nothing,
dreamy semi-consciousness, occasionally varied by a suddenly-
conceived and indignant remonstrance, hurled in foolscap at the
head of the defalcating member for the county. During all this time
fortune used him but scurvily: his mother's tenants at Midvale
clamored for a reduction of rent; one decamped without payment of
arrears; repairs were necessary, and had to be done and paid for.
These drawbacks reduced the small income upon which they lived,
and sensibly affected the outward man of the gentlemanly Griffith:
he began to look seedy, and occasionally borrowed a few shillings of
me when we casually met, which he forgot to pay. I must do him the
credit to say that he never avoided me on account of these trifling
debts, but with an innate frankness characteristic of his boyhood,
continued his friendship and his confidences. At length the happy
day arrived. He received his appointment, bearing the remuneration
of £200 a year, which he devoutly believed was to lead to something
infinitely greater, and called on me on his way to the office where he
was to be installed and indoctrinated into his function.
The grand object of her life—the settlement of her son—thus
accomplished, the mother returned to Midvale, where she shortly
after died, in the full conviction that Griffith was on the road to
preferment and fortune. The little estate—upon the proceeds of
which she had frugally maintained herself and son—passed, at her
death, into the hands of one of her brothers, none of whom took
any further notice of Griffith, who had mortally offended them by his
instrumentality in returning the old member for the county, whom it
was their endeavor to unseat. There is a mystery connected with
Griffith's tenure of office which I could never succeed in fathoming.
He held it but for six months, when, probably not being competent
to keep it, he sold it to an advertising applicant, who offered a
douceur of £300 for such a berth. How the transfer was arranged I
can not tell, not knowing the recondite formula in use upon these
occasions. Suffice it to say that Griffith had his £300, paid his little
debts, renewed his wardrobe and his expectations, and began to
cast about for a new patron. He was now a gentleman about town,
and exceedingly well he both looked and acted the character: he had
prudence enough to do it upon an economical scale, and though
living upon his capital, doled it out with a sparing hand. As long as
his money lasted he did very well; but before the end of the third
year the bloom of his gentility had worn off, and it was plain that he
was painfully economizing the remnant of his funds.
About this time I happened to remove to a different quarter of the
metropolis, and lost sight of him for more than a year. One morning,
expecting a letter of some importance, I waited for the postman
before walking to business. What was my astonishment on
responding personally to his convulsive "b'bang," to recognize under
the gold-banded hat and red-collared coat of that peripatetic official
the gentlemanly figure and features of my old schoolfellow Griffith
Maclean!
"What! Griff?" I exclaimed: "is it possible?—can this be you?"
"Well," said he, "I am inclined to think it is. You see, old fellow, a
man must do something or starve. This is all I could get out of that
shabby fellow T—— and I should not have got this had I not well
worried him. He knows I have no longer a vote for the county.
However, I shan't wear this livery long: there are good berths
enough in the post-office. If they don't pretty soon give me
something fit for a gentleman to do, I shall take myself off as soon
as any thing better offers. But, by George? there is not much time
allowed for talking: I must be off—farewell!"
Soon after this meeting the fourpenny deliveries commenced; and
these were before long followed by the establishment of the
universal Penny-post. This was too much for Griffith. He swore he
was walked off his legs; that people did nothing upon earth but write
letters; that he was jaded to death by lugging them about; that he
had no intention of walking into his coffin for the charge of one
penny; and, finally, that he would have no more of it. Accordingly he
made application for promotion on the strength of his
recommendation, was refused as a matter of course, and vacated
his post for the pleasure of a week's rest, which he declared was
more than it was honestly worth.
By this time destiny had made me a housekeeper in "merry
Islington;" and poor Griff, now reduced to his shifts, waited on me
one morning with a document to which he wanted my signature, the
object of which was to get him into the police force. Though
doubting his perseverance in any thing, I could not but comply with
his desire, especially as many of my neighbors had done the same.
The paper testified only as to character; and as Griff was sobriety
itself, and as it would have required considerable ingenuity to fasten
any vice upon him, I might have been hardly justified in refusing. I
represented to him as I wrote my name, that should he be
successful, he would really have an opportunity of rising by
perseverance in good conduct to an upper grade. "Of course," said
he, "that is my object; it would never do for a gentleman to sit down
contented as a policeman. I intend to rise from the ranks, and I trust
you will live to see me one day at the head of the force."
He succeeded in his application; and not long after signing his paper
I saw him indued with the long coat, oil-cape, and glazed hat of the
brotherhood, marching off in Indian file for night-duty to his beat in
the H—— Road. Whether the night air disagreed with his stomach,
or whether his previous duty as a postman had made him doubly
drowsy, I can not say, but he was found by the inspector on going
his rounds in a position too near the horizontal for the regulations of
the force, and suspended, after repeated trangression, for sleeping
upon a bench under a covered doorway while a robbery was going
on in the neighborhood. He soon found that the profession was not
at all adapted to his habits, and had not power enough over them to
subdue them to his vocation. He lingered on for a few weeks under
the suspicious eye of authority, and at length took the advice of the
inspector, and withdrew from the force.
He did not make his appearance before me as I expected, and I lost
sight of him for a long while. What new shifts and contrivances he
had recourse to—what various phases of poverty and deprivation he
became acquainted with during the two years that he was absent
from my sight, are secrets which no man can fathom. I was standing
at the foot of Blackfriar's Bridge one morning waiting for a clear
passage to cross the road, and began mechanically reading a printed
board, offering to all the sons of Adam—whom, for the especial
profit of the slopsellers, Heaven sends naked into the world—
garments of the choicest broadcloth for next to nothing, and had
just mastered the whole of the large-printed lie, when my eye fell
full upon the bearer of the board, whose haggard but still
gentlemanly face revealed to me the lineaments of my old friend
Griff. He laughed in spite of his rags as our eyes met, and seized my
proffered hand.
"And what," said I, not daring to be silent, "do they pay you for
this?"
"Six shillings a week," said Griff, "and that's better than nothing."
"Six shillings and your board of course?"
"Yes, this board" (tapping the placarded timber); "and a confounded
heavy board it is. Sometimes when the wind takes it, though, I'm
thinking it will fly away with me into the river, heavy as it is."
"And do you stand here all day?"
"No, not when it rains: the wet spoils the print, and we have orders
to run under cover. After one o'clock I walk about with it wherever I
like, and stretch my legs a bit. There's no great hardship in it if the
pay was better."
I left my old playmate better resigned to his lowly lot than I thought
to have found him. It was clear that he had at length found a
function for which he was at least qualified; that he knew the fact;
and that the knowledge imparted some small spice of satisfaction to
his mind. I am happy to have to state that this was the deepest
depth to which he has fallen. He has never been a sandwich—I am
sure indeed he would never have borne it. With his heavy board
mounted on a stout staff, he could imagine himself, as no doubt he
often did, a standard-bearer on the battle-field, determined to
defend his colors with his last breath; and his tall, gentlemanly, and
somewhat officer-like figure, might well suggest the comparison to a
casual spectator. But to encase his genteel proportions in a surtout
of papered planks, or hang a huge wooden extinguisher over his
shoulders labeled with colored stripes—it would never have done: it
would have blotted out the gentleman, and therefore have worn
away the heart of one whose shapely gentility was all that was left
to him.
One might have thought, after all the vicissitudes he had passed
through, that the soul of Griffith Maclean was dead to the voice of
ambition. Not so, however. On the first establishment of the street-
orderlies, that chord in his nature spontaneously vibrated once
again. If he could only get an appointment it would be a rise in the
social scale—leading by degrees—who can tell?—to the resumption
of his original status, or even something beyond.... I hear a gentle
knock, a modest, low-toned single dab, at the street-door as I am
sitting down to supper on my return home after the fatigues of
business. Betty is in no hurry to go to the door, as she is poaching a
couple of eggs, and prides herself upon performing that delicate
operation in irreproachable style. "Squilsh!" they go one after
another into the saucepan—I hear it as plainly as though I were in
the kitchen. Now the plates clatter; the tray is loading; and now the
eggs are walking up stairs, steaming under Betty's face, when "dab"
again—a thought, only a thought louder than before—at the street-
door. The spirit of patience is outside; and now Betty runs with an
apology for keeping him waiting. "Here's a man wants to speak to
master; says he'll wait if you are engaged, sir; he ain't in no hurry."
"Show him in;" and in walks Griff, again armed with a document—a
petition for employment as a street-orderly, with testimonials of
good character, honesty, and all that. Of course I again append my
signature, without any allusion to the police force. I wish him all
success, and have a long talk over past fun and follies, and present
hopes and future prospects, and the philosophy of poverty and the
deceitfulness of wealth. We part at midnight, and Griff next day gets
the desiderated appointment.
It is raining hard while I write, and by the same token I know that at
this precise moment Griffith in his glazed hat, and short blouse, and
ponderous mud-shoes, is clearing a channel for the diluted muck of
C—— street, city, and directing the black, oozy current by the
shortest cut to the open grating connected with the common sewer.
I am as sure as though I were superintending the operation, that he
handles his peculiar instrument—a sort of hybrid between a hoe and
a rake—with the grace and air of a gentleman—a grace and an air
proclaiming to the world that though in the profession, whatever it
may be called, which he has assumed, he is not of it, and vindicating
the workmanship of nature, who, whatever circumstances may have
compelled him to become, cast him in the mould of a gentleman. It
is said that in London every man finds his level. Whether Griffith
Maclean, after all his vicissitudes, has found his, I do not pretend to
say. Happily for him, he thinks that fortune has done her worst, and
that he is bound to rise on her revolving wheel as high at least as he
has fallen low. May the hope stick by him, and give birth to energies
productive of its realization!
 THE PLEASURES AND PERILS OF
BALLOONING.
It would appear that, in almost every age, from time immemorial,
there has been a strong feeling in certain ambitious mortals to
ascend among the clouds. They have felt with Hecate—

"Oh what a dainty pleasure 'tis

So many, besides those who have actually indulged in it, have felt
desirous of tasting the "dainty pleasure" of a perilous flight, that we
are compelled to believe that the attraction is not only much greater
than the inducement held out would leave one to expect, but that it
is far more extensive than generally supposed. Eccentric ambition,
daring, vanity, and the love of excitement and novelty, have been
quite as strong impulses as the love of science, and of making new
discoveries in man's mastery over physical nature. Nevertheless, the
latter feeling has, no doubt, been the main-stay, if not the
forerunner and father of these attempts, and has held it in public
respect, notwithstanding the many follies that have been committed.
To master the physical elements, has always been the great aim of
man. He commenced with earth, his own natural, obvious, and
immediate element, and he has succeeded to a prodigious extent,
being able to do (so far as he knows) almost whatever he wills with
the surface; and, though reminded every now and then by some
terrible disaster that he is getting "out of bounds" has effected great
conquests amidst the dark depths beneath the surface. Water and
fire came next in requisition; and by the process of ages, man may
fairly congratulate himself on the extraordinary extent, both in kind
and degree, to which he has subjected them to his designs—designs
which have become complicated and stupendous in the means by
which they are carried out, and having commensurate results both
of abstract knowledge and practical utility. But the element of air has
hitherto been too subtle for all his projects, and defied his attempts
at conquest. That element which permeates all earthly bodies, and
without breathing which the animal machine can not continue its
vital functions—into that grand natural reservoir of breath, there is
every physical indication that it is not intended man should ascend
as its lord. Traveling and voyaging man must be content with earth
and ocean;—the sublime highways of air, are, to all appearance,
denied to his wanderings.
Wild and daring as was the act, it is no less true that men's first
attempts at a flight through the air were literally with wings. They
conjectured that by elongating their arms with a broad mechanical
covering, they could convert them into wings; and forgetting that
birds possess air-cells, which they can inflate, that their bones are
full of air instead of marrow, and, also, that they possess enormous
strength of sinews expressly for this purpose, these desperate half-
theorists have launched themselves from towers and other high
places, and floundered down to the demolition of their necks, or
limbs, according to the obvious laws and penalties of nature. We do
not allude to the Icarus of old, or any fabulous or remote aspirants,
but to modern times. Wonderful as it may seem, there are some
instances in which they escaped with only a few broken bones.
Milton tells a story of this kind in his "History of Britain;" the flying
man being a monk of Malmsbury, "in his youth." He lived to be
impudent and jocose on the subject, and attributed his failure
entirely to his having forgotten to wear a broad tail of feathers. In
1742 the Marquis de Bacqueville announced that he would fly with
wings from the top of his own house on the Quai des Theatins to the
garden of the Tuileries. He actually accomplished half the distance,
when, being exhausted with his efforts, the wings no longer beat the
air, and he came down into the Seine, and would have escaped
unhurt, but that he fell against one of the floating machines of the
Parisian laundresses, and thereby fractured his leg. But the most
successful of all these instances of the extraordinary, however
misapplied, force of human energies and daring, was that of a
certain citizen of Bologna, in the thirteenth century, who actually
managed, with some kind of wing contrivance, to fly from the
mountain of Bologna to the River Reno, without injury. "Wonderful!
admirable!" cried all the citizens of Bologna. "Stop a little!" said the
officers of the Holy Inquisition; "this must be looked into." They sat
in sacred conclave. If the man had been killed, said they, or even
mutilated shockingly, our religious scruples would have been
satisfied; but, as he has escaped unhurt, it is clear that he must be
in league with the devil. The poor "successful" man was therefore
condemned to be burnt alive; and the sentence of the Holy Catholic
Church was carried into Christian execution.
That flying, however, could be effected by the assistance of some
more elaborate sort of machinery, or with the aid of chemistry, was
believed at an early period. Friar Bacon suggested it; so did Bishop
Wilkins, and the Marquis of Worcester; it was likewise projected by
Fleyder, by the Jesuit Lana, and many other speculative men of
ability. So far, however, as we can see, the first real discoverer of the
balloon was Dr. Black, who, in 1767, proposed to inflate a large skin
with hydrogen gas; and the first who brought theory into practice
were the brothers Montgolfier. But their theory was that of the "fire-
balloon," or the formation of an artificial cloud, of smoke, by means
of heat from a lighted brazier placed beneath an enormous bag, or
balloon, and fed with fuel while up in the air. The Academy of
Sciences immediately gave the invention every encouragement, and
two gentlemen volunteered to risk an ascent in this alarming
machine.
The first of these was Pilâtre de Rosier, a gentleman of scientific
attainments, who was to conduct the machine, and he was
accompanied by the Marquis d'Arlandes, an officer in the Guards.
They ascended in the presence of the Court of France, and all the
scientific men in Paris. They had several narrow escapes of the
whole machine taking fire, but eventually returned to the ground in
safety. Both these courageous men came to untimely ends
subsequently. Pilâtre de Rosier, admiring the success of the balloon
afterward made by Professor Charles, and others, (viz., a balloon
filled with hydrogen gas), conceived the idea of uniting the two
systems, and accordingly ascended with a large balloon of that kind,
having a small fire-balloon beneath it—the upper one to sustain the
greater portion of the weight, the lower one to enable him to alter
his specific gravity as occasion might require, and thus to avoid the
usual expenditure of gas and ballast. Right in theory—but he had
forgotten one thing. Ascending too high, confident in his theory, the
upper balloon became distended too much, and poured down a
stream of hydrogen gas, in self-relief, which reached the little
furnace of the fire-balloon, and the whole machine became presently
one mass of flame. It was consumed in the air, as it descended, and
with it of course, the unfortunate Pilâtre de Rosier. The untimely fate
of the Marquis d'Arlandes, his companion in the first ascent ever
made in a balloon, was hastened by one of those circumstances
which display the curious anomalies in human nature;—he was
broken for cowardice in the execution of his military duties, and is
supposed to have committed suicide.
If we consider the shape, structure, appurtenances, and capabilities
of a ship of early ages, and one of the present time, we must be
struck with admiration at the great improvement that has been
made, and the advantages that have been obtained; but balloons
are very nearly what they were from the first, and are as much at
the mercy of the wind for the direction they will take. Neither is
there at present any certain prospect of an alteration in this
condition. Their so-called "voyage" is little more than "drifting," and
can be no more, except by certain manœuvres which obtain
precarious exceptions, such as rising to take the chance of different
currents, or lowering a long and weighty rope upon the earth (an
ingenious invention of Mr. Green's, called the "guide rope"), to be
trailed along the ground. If, however, man is ever to be a flying
animal, and to travel in the air whither he listeth, it must be by other
means than wings, balloons, paddle-machines, and aerial ships—
several of which are now building in America, in Paris, and in
London. We do not doubt the mechanical genius of inventors—but
the motive power. We will offer a few remarks on these projects
before we conclude.
But let us, at all events, ascend into the sky! Taking balloons as they
are, "for better, for worse," as Mr. Green would say—let us for once
have a flight in the air.
The first thing you naturally expect is some extraordinary sensation
in springing high up into the air, which takes away your breath for a
time. But no such matter occurs. The extraordinary thing is, that you
experience no sensation at all, so far as motion is concerned. So true
is this, that on one occasion, when Mr. Green wished to rise a little
above a dense crowd, in order to get out of the extreme heat and
pressure that surrounded his balloon, those who held the ropes,
misunderstanding his direction, let go entirely, and the balloon
instantly rose, while the aeronaut remained calmly seated, wiping his
forehead with a handkerchief, after the exertions he had undergone
in preparing for the flight, and totally unconscious of what had
happened. He declares that he only became aware of the
circumstance, when, on reaching a considerable elevation (a few
seconds are often quite enough for that), he heard the shouts of the
multitude becoming fainter and fainter, which caused him to start
up, and look over the edge of the car.
A similar unconsciousness of the time of their departure from earth
has often happened to "passengers." A very amusing illustration of
this is given in a letter published by Mr. Poole, the well-known
author, shortly after his ascent. "I do not despise you," says he, "for
talking about a balloon going up, for it is an error which you share in
common with some millions of our fellow-creatures; and I, in the
days of my ignorance, thought with the rest of you. I know better
now. The fact is, we do not go up at all; but at about five minutes
past six on the evening of Friday, the 14th of September, 1838—at
about that time, Vauxhall Gardens, with all the people in them, went
down!" What follows is excellent. "I can not have been deceived,"
says he; "I speak from the evidence of my senses, founded upon
repetition of the fact. Upon each of the three or four experimental
trials of the powers of the balloon to enable the people to glide away
from us with safety to themselves—down they all went about thirty
feet?—then, up they came again, and so on. There we sat quietly all
the while, in our wicker buck-basket, utterly unconscious of motion;
till, at length, Mr. Green snapping a little iron, and thus letting loose
the rope by which the earth was suspended to us—like Atropos,
cutting the connection between us with a pair of shears—down it
went, with every thing on it; and your poor, paltry, little Dutch toy of
a town, (your Great Metropolis, as you insolently call it), having been
placed on casters for the occasion—I am satisfied of that—was
gently rolled away from under us."[13]
Feeling nothing of the ascending motion, the first impression that
takes possession of you in "going up" in a balloon, is the quietude—
the silence, that grows more and more entire. The restless heaving
to and fro of the huge inflated sphere above your head (to say
nothing of the noise of the crowd), the flapping of ropes, the rustling
of silk, and the creaking of the basketwork of the car—all has
ceased. There is a total cessation of all atmospheric resistance. You
sit in a silence which becomes more perfect every second. After the
bustle of many moving objects, you stare before you into blank air.
We make no observations on other sensations—to wit, the very
natural one of a certain increased pulse, at being so high up, with a
chance of coming down so suddenly, if any little matter went wrong.
As all this will differ with different individuals, according to their
nervous systems and imaginations, we will leave each person to his
own impressions.
So much for what you first feel; and now what is the first thing you
do? In this case every body is alike. We all do the same thing. We
look over the side of the car. We do this very cautiously—keeping a
firm seat, as though we clung to our seat by a certain attraction of
cohesion—and then, holding on by the edge, we carefully protrude
the peak of our traveling-cap, and then the tip of the nose, over the
edge of the car, upon which we rest our mouth. Every thing below is
seen in so new a form, so flat, compressed and simultaneously—so
much too-much-at-a-time—that the first look is hardly so satisfactory
as could be desired. But soon we thrust the chin fairly over the
edge, and take a good stare downward; and this repays us much
better. Objects appear under very novel circumstances from this
vertical position, and ascending retreat from them (though it is they
that appear to sink and retreat from us). They are stunted and
foreshortened, and rapidly flattened to a map-like appearance; they
get smaller and smaller, and clearer and clearer. "An idea," says
Monck Mason, "involuntarily seizes upon the mind, that the earth
with all its inhabitants had, by some unaccountable effort of nature,
been suddenly precipitated from its hold, and was in the act of
slipping away from beneath the aeronaut's feet into the murky
recesses of some unfathomable abyss below. Every thing, in fact,
but himself, seems to have been suddenly endowed with motion."
Away goes the earth, with all its objects—sinking lower and lower,
and every thing becoming less and less, but getting more and more
distinct and defined as they diminish in size. But, besides the retreat
toward minuteness, the phantasmagoria flattens as it lessens—men
and women are of five inches high, then of four, three, two, one inch
—and now a speck; the Great Western is a narrow strip of
parchment, and upon it you see a number of little trunks "running
away with each other," while the Great Metropolis itself is a board
set out with toys; its public edifices turned into "baby-houses, and
pepper-casters, and extinguishers, and chess-men, with here and
there a dish-cover—things which are called domes, and spires, and
steeples!" As for the Father of Rivers, he becomes a dusky-gray,
winding streamlet, and his largest ships are no more than flat pale
decks, all the masts and rigging being foreshortened to nothing. We
soon come now to the shadowy, the indistinct—and then all is lost in
air. Floating clouds fill up all the space beneath. Lovely colors
outspread themselves, ever-varying in tone, and in their forms or
outlines—now sweeping in broad lines—now rolling and heaving in
huge, richly, yet softly-tinted billows—while sometimes, through a
great opening, rift, or break, you see a level expanse of gray or blue
fields at an indefinite depth below. And all this time there is a
noiseless cataract of snowy cloud-rocks falling around you—falling
swiftly on all sides of the car, in great fleecy masses—in small snow-
white and glistening fragments—and immense compound masses—
all white, and soft, and swiftly rushing past you, giddily, and
incessantly down, down, and all with the silence of a dream—
strange, lustrous, majestic, incomprehensible.
Aeronauts, of late years, have become, in many instances,
respectable and business-like, and not given to extravagant fictions
about their voyages, which now, more generally, take the form of a
not very lively log. But it used to be very different when the art was
in its infancy, some thirty or forty years ago, and young balloonists
indulged in romantic fancies. We do not believe that there was a
direct intention to tell falsehoods, but that they often deceived
themselves very amusingly. Thus, it has been asserted, that when
you attained a great elevation, the air became so rarefied that you
could not breathe, and that small objects, being thrown out of the
balloon, could not fall, and stuck against the side of the car. Also,
that wild birds, being taken up and suddenly let loose, could not fly
properly, but returned immediately to the car for an explanation.
One aeronaut declared that his head became so contracted by his
great elevation, that his hat tumbled over his eyes, and persisted in
resting on the bridge of his nose. This assertion was indignantly
rebutted by another aeronaut of the same period, who declared
that, on the contrary, the head expanded in proportion to the
elevation; in proof of which he stated, that on his last ascent he
went so high that his hat burst. Another of these romantic
personages described a wonderful feat of skill and daring which he
had performed up in the air. At an elevation of two miles, his balloon
burst several degrees above "the equator" (meaning, above the
middle region of the balloon), whereupon he crept up the lines that
attached the car, until he reached the netting that inclosed the
balloon; and up this netting he clambered, until he reached the
aperture, into which he thrust—not his head—but his pocket
handkerchief! Mr. Monck Mason, to whose "Aeronautica" we are
indebted for the anecdote, gives eight different reasons to show the
impossibility of any such feat having ever been performed in the air.
One of these is highly graphic. The "performer" would change the
line of gravitation by such an attempt: he would never be able to
mount the sides, and would only be like the squirrel in its revolving
cage. He would, however, pull the netting round—the spot where he
clung to, ever remaining the lowest—until having reversed the
machine, the balloon would probably make its escape, in an
elongated shape, through the large interstices of that portion of the
net-work which is just above the car, when the balloon is in its
proper position! But the richest of all these romances is the following
brief statement:—A scientific gentleman, well advanced in years
(who had "probably witnessed the experiment of the restoration of a
withered pear beneath the exhausted receiver of a pneumatic
machine") was impressed with a conviction, on ascending to a
considerable height in a balloon, that every line and wrinkle of his
face had totally disappeared, owing, as he said, to the preternatural
distension of his skin; and that, to the astonishment of his
companion, he rapidly began to assume the delicate aspect and
blooming appearance of his early youth!
These things are all self-delusions. A bit of paper or a handkerchief
might cling to the outside of the car, but a penny-piece would,
undoubtedly, fall direct to the earth. Wild birds do not return to the
car, but descend in circles, till, passing through the clouds, they see
whereabouts to go, and then they fly downward as usual. We have
no difficulty in breathing; on the contrary, being "called upon," we
sing a song. Our head does not contract, so as to cause our hat to
extinguish our eyes and nose; neither does it expand to the size of a
prize pumpkin. We see that it is impossible to climb up the netting of
the balloon over-head, and so do not think of attempting it; neither
do we find all the lines in our face getting filled up, and the
loveliness of our "blushing morning" taking the place of a marked
maturity. These fancies are not less ingenious and comical than that
of the sailor who hit upon the means of using a balloon to make a
rapid voyage to any part of the earth. "The earth spins round," said
he, "at a great rate, don't it? Well, I'd go up two or three miles high
in my balloon, and then 'lay to,' and when any place on the globe I
wished to touch at, passed underneath me, down I'd drop upon it."
But we are still floating high in air. How do we feel all this time?
"Calm, sir—calm and resigned." Yes, and more than this. After a little
while, when you find nothing happens, and see nothing likely to
happen (and you will more especially feel this under the careful
conduct of the veteran Green), a delightful serenity takes the place
of all other sensations—to which the extraordinary silence, as well as
the pale beauty and floating hues that surround you, is chiefly
attributable. The silence is perfect—a wonder and a rapture. We
hear the ticking of our watches. Tick! tick!—or is it the beat of our
own hearts? We are sure of the watch; and now we think we can
hear both.
Two other sensations must, by no means, be forgotten. You become
very cold, and desperately hungry. But you have got a warm outer
coat, and traveling boots, and other valuable things, and you have
not left behind you the pigeon-pie, the ham, cold beef, bottled ale
and brandy.
Of the increased coldness which you feel on passing from a bright
cloud into a dark one, the balloon is quite as sensitive as you can
be; and, probably, much more so, for it produces an immediate
change of altitude. The expansion and contraction which romantic
gentlemen fancied took place in the size of their heads, does really
take place in the balloon, according as it passes from a cloud of one
temperature into that of another.
We are now nearly three miles high. Nothing is to be seen but pale
air above—around—on all sides, with floating clouds beneath. How
should you like to descend in a parachute?—to be dangled by a long
line from the bottom of the car, and suddenly to be "let go," and to
dip at once clean down through those gray-blue and softly rose-
tinted clouds, skimming so gently beneath us? Not at all: oh, by no
manner of means—thank you! Ah, you are thinking of the fate of
poor Cocking, the enthusiast in parachutes, concerning whom, and
his fatal "improvement," the public is satisfied that it knows every
thing, from the one final fact—that he was killed. But there is
something more than that in it, as we fancy.
Two words against parachutes. In the first place, there is no use to
which, at present, they can be applied; and, in the second, they are
so unsafe as to be likely, in all cases, to cost a life for each descent.
In the concise words of Mr. Green, we should say—"the best
parachute is a balloon; the others are bad things to have to deal
with."
Mr. Cocking, as we have said, was an enthusiast in parachutes. He
felt sure he had discovered a new, and the true, principle. All
parachutes, before his day, had been constructed to descend in a
concave form, like that of an open umbrella; the consequence of
which was, that the parachute descended with a violent swinging
from side to side, which sometimes threw the man in the basket in
almost a horizontal position. Mr. Cocking conceived that the converse
form; viz., an inverted cone (of large dimensions), would remedy this
evil; and becoming convinced, we suppose, by some private
experiments with models, he agreed to descend on a certain day.
The time was barely adequate to his construction of the parachute,
and did not admit of such actual experiments with a sheep, or pig,
or other animal, as prudence would naturally have suggested.
Besides the want of time, however, Cocking equally wanted
prudence; he felt sure of his new principle; this new form of
parachute was the hobby of his life, and up he went on the
appointed day (for what aeronaut shall dare to "disappoint the
Public?")—dangling by a rope, fifty feet long, from the bottom of the
car of Mr. Green's great Nassau Balloon.
The large upper rim of the parachute, in imitation, we suppose, of
the hollow bones of a bird, was made of hollow tin—a most
inapplicable and brittle material; and besides this, it had two
fractures. But Mr. Cocking was not to be deterred; convinced of the
truth of his discovery, up he would go. Mr. Green was not equally at
ease, and positively refused to touch the latch of the "liberating
iron," which was to detach the parachute from the balloon. Mr.
Cocking arranged to do this himself, for which means he procured a
piece of new cord of upward of fifty feet in length, which was
fastened to the latch above in the car, and led down to his hand in
the basket of the parachute. Up they went to a great height, and
disappeared among the clouds.
Mr. Green had taken up one friend with him in the car; and, knowing
well what would happen the instant so great a weight as the
parachute and man were detached, he had provided a small balloon
inside the car, filled with atmospheric air, with two mouth-pieces.
They were now upward of a mile high.
"How do you feel, Mr. Cocking?" called out Green. "Never better, or
more delighted in my life," answered Cocking. Though hanging at
fifty feet distance, in the utter silence of that region, every accent
was easily heard. "But, perhaps you will alter your mind?" suggested
Green. "By no means," cried Cocking; "but, how high are
we?"—"Upward of a mile."—"I must go higher, Mr. Green—I must be
taken up two miles before I liberate the parachute." Now, Mr. Green,
having some regard for himself and his friend, as well as for poor
Cocking, was determined not to do any such thing. After some
further colloquy, therefore, during which Mr. Green threw out a little
more ballast, and gained a little more elevation, he finally
announced that he could go no higher, as he now needed all the
ballast he had for their own safety in the balloon. "Very well," said
Cocking, "if you really will not take me any higher, I shall say good-
by."
At this juncture Green called out, "Now, Mr. Cocking, if your mind at
all misgives you about your parachute, I have provided a tackle up
here, which I can lower down to you, and then wind you up into the
car by my little grapnel-iron windlass, and nobody need be the
wiser."—"Certainly not," cried Cocking; "thank you all the same. I
shall now make ready to pull the latch-cord." Finding he was
determined, Green and his friend both crouched down in the car,
and took hold of the mouth-pieces of their little air-balloon. "All
ready?" called out Cocking. "All ready!" answered the veteran
aeronaut above. "Good-night, Mr. Green!"—"Good-night, Mr.
Cocking!"—"A pleasant voyage to you, Mr. Green—good-night!"
There was a perfect silence—a few seconds of intense suspense—
and then the aeronauts in the car felt a jerk upon the latch. It had
not been forcible enough to open the liberating iron. Cocking had
failed to detach the parachute. Another pause of horrid silence
ensued.
Then came a strong jerk upon the latch, and in an instant, the great
balloon shot upward with a side-long swirl, like a wounded serpent.
They saw their flag clinging flat down against the flag-staff, while a
torrent of gas rushed down upon them through the aperture in the
balloon above their heads, and continued to pour down into the car
for a length of time that would have suffocated them but for the
judgmatic provision of the little balloon of atmospheric air, to the
mouth-pieces of which their own mouths were fixed, as they
crouched down at the bottom of the car. Of Mr. Cocking's fate, or the
result of his experiment, they had not the remotest knowledge. They
only knew the parachute was gone!
The termination of Mr. Cocking's experiment is well known. For a few
seconds he descended quickly, but steadily, and without swinging—
as he had designed, and insisted would be the result—when,
suddenly, those who were watching with glasses below, saw the
parachute lean on one side—then give a lurch to the other—then the
large upper circle collapsed (the disastrous hollow tin-tubing having
evidently broken up), and the machine entered the upper part of a
cloud: in a few more seconds it was seen to emerge from the lower
part of the cloud—the whole thing turned over—and then, like a
closed-up broken umbrella, it shot straight down to the earth. The
unfortunate, and, as most people regard him, the foolish enthusiast,
was found still in the basket in which he reached the earth. He was
quite insensible, but uttered a moan; and in ten minutes he was
dead.
Half a word in favor of parachutes. True, they are of no use "at
present;" but who knows of what use such things may one day be?
As to Mr. Cocking's invention, the disaster seems to be attributable
to errors of detail, rather than of principle. Mr. Green is of opinion,
from an examination of the broken latch-cord, combined with other
circumstances, which would require diagrams to describe
satisfactorily, that after Mr. Cocking had failed to liberate himself the
first time, he twisted the cord round his hand to give a good jerk,
forgetting that in doing so, he united himself to the balloon above,
as it would be impossible to disengage his hand in time. By this
means he was violently jerked into his parachute, which broke the
latch-cord; but the tin tube was not able to bear such a shock, and
this caused so serious a fracture, in addition to its previous unsound
condition, that it soon afterward collapsed. This leads one to
conjecture that had the outer rim been made of strong wicker-work,
or whale-bone, so as to be somewhat pliable, and that Mr. Green
had liberated the parachute, instead of Mr. Cocking, it would have
descended to the earth with perfect safety—skimming the air,
instead of the violent oscillations of the old form of this machine. We
conclude, however, with Mr. Green's laconic—that the safest
parachute is a balloon.
But here we are—still above the clouds! We may assume that you
would not like to be "let off" in a parachute, even on the improved
principle; we will therefore prepare for descending with the balloon.
This is a work requiring great skill and care to effect safely, so as to
alight on a suitable piece of ground, and without any detriment to
the voyagers, the balloon, gardens, crops, &c.
The valve-line is pulled!—out rushes the gas from the top of the
balloon—you see the flag fly upward—down through the clouds you
sink faster and faster—lower and lower. Now you begin to see dark
masses below—there's the Old Earth again!—the dark masses now
discover themselves to be little forests, little towns, tree-tops, house-
tops—out goes a shower of sand from the ballast-bags, and our
descent becomes slower—another shower, and up we mount again,