In the summer of 1873 the proprietors of the New York Daily Graphic, reviving a project discussed by Green in 1840, determined to construct a very large balloon, and enable the American aeronaut, John Wise, to realize his favourite scheme of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, by taking advantage of the current from west Long balloon voyages.to east which was believed by many to exist constantly at heights above 10,000 ft. The project came to nothing owing to the quality of the material of which the balloon was made. When it was being inflated in September 1873 a rent was observed after 325,000 cub. ft. of gas had been put in, and the whole rapidly collapsed. The size was said to be such as to contain 400,000 cub. ft., so that it would lift a weight of 14,000 lb. No balloon voyage has yet been made of a length comparable to the breadth of the Atlantic. In fact only two voyages exceeding 1000 m. are on record—that of John Wise from St Louis to Henderson, N.Y., 1120 m., in 1859, and that of Count Henry de la Vaulx from Paris to Korosticheff in Russia, 1193 m., in 1900. On the 11th of July 1897 Salomon Andree, with two companions, Strendberg and Frankel, ascended from Spitzbergen in a daring attempt to reach the North Pole, about 600 m. distant. One carrier pigeon, apparently liberated 48 hours after the start, was shot, and two floating buoys with messages were found, but nothing more was heard of the explorers.
At an early date the balloon was applied to scientific purposes. So far back as 1784, Dr Jeffries made an ascent from London in which he carried out barometric, thermometric and hygrometric observations, also collecting samples of the air at different heights. In 1803 the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, entertaining the opinion that the Scientific ascents.experiments made on mountain-sides by J. A. Deluc, H. B. de Saussure, A. von Humboldt and others must give results different from those made in free air at the same heights, resolved to arrange a balloon ascent. Accordingly, on the 30th of January 1808, Sacharof, a member of the academy, ascended in a gas-balloon, in company with a French aeronaut, É. G. Robertson, who at one time gave conjuring entertainments in Paris. The ascent was made at a quarter past seven, and the descent effected at a quarter to eleven. The height reached was less than 112 m. The experiments were not very systematically made, and the chief results were the filling and bringing down of several flasks of air collected at different elevations, and the supposed observation that the magnetic dip was altered. A telescope fixed in the bottom of the car and pointing vertically downwards enabled the travellers to ascertain exactly the spot over which they were floating at any moment. Sacharof found that, on shouting downwards through his speaking-trumpet, the echo from the earth was quite distinct, and at his height was audible after an interval of about ten seconds (Phil. Mag., 1805, 21, p. 193).
Some of the results reported by Robertson appearing doubtful, Laplace proposed to the members of the French Academy of Sciences that the funds placed by the government at their disposal for the prosecution of useful experiments should be utilized in sending up balloons to test their accuracy. The proposition was supported by J. A. C. Chaptal, the chemist, who was then minister of the interior, and accordingly the necessary arrangements were speedily effected, the charge of the experiments being given to L. J. Gay-Lussac and J. B. Biot. The principal object of this ascent was to determine whether the magnetic force experienced any appreciable diminution at heights above the earth’s surface. On the 24th of August 1804, Gay-Lussac and Biot ascended from the Conservatoire des Arts at ten o'clock in the morning. Their magnetic experiments were incommoded by the rotation of the balloon, but they found that, up to the height of 13,000 ft., the time of vibration of a magnet was appreciably the same as on the earth’s surface. They found also that the air became drier as they ascended. The height reached was about 13,000 ft., and the temperature declined from 63° to 51° F. The descent was effected about half-past one, at Meriville, 18 leagues from Paris.
In a second experiment, which was made on the 16th of September 1804, Gay-Lussac ascended alone. The balloon left the Conservatoire des Arts at 9.40 a.m., and descended at 3.45 p.m. between Rouen and Dieppe. The chief result obtained was that the magnetic force, like gravitation, did not experience any sensible variation at heights from the earth’s surface which we can attain to. Gay-Lussac also brought down air collected at the height of nearly 23,000 ft., and on analysis it appeared that its composition was the same as that of air collected at the earth’s surface. At the time of leaving the earth the thermometer stood at 82° F., and at the highest point reached (23,000 ft.) it was 14·9° F. Gay-Lussac remarked that at his highest point there were still clouds above him.
From 1804 to 1850 there is no record of any scientific ascents in balloons having been undertaken. In the latter year J. A. Bixio (1808–1865) and A. Barral (1819–1884) made two ascents of this kind. In the first they ascended from the Paris observatory on the 29th of June 1850, at 10.27 a.m., the balloon being inflated with hydrogen gas. The day was a rough one, and the ascent took place without any previous attempt having been made to test the ascensional force of the balloon. When liberated, it rose with great rapidity, and becoming fully inflated it pressed upon the network, bulging out at the top and bottom. The ropes by which the car was suspended being too short, the balloon soon covered the travellers like an immense hood. In endeavouring to secure the valve-rope, they made a rent in the balloon, and the gas escaped so close to their faces as almost to suffocate them. Finding that they were descending then too rapidly, they threw overboard everything available, including their coats and only excepting the instruments. The ground was reached at 10h. 45m., near Lagny. Of course no observations were made. Their second ascent was made on the 27th of July, and was remarkable on account of the extreme cold met with. At about 20,000 ft. the temperature was 15° F., the balloon being enveloped in cloud; but on emerging from the cloud, at 23,000 ft., the temperature sank to −38° F., no less than 53° F. below that experienced by Gay-Lussac at the same elevation. The existence of these very cold clouds served to explain certain meteorological phenomena that were observed on the earth both the day before and the day after the ascent. Some pigeons were taken up in this, as in most other high ascents; when liberated, they showed a reluctance to leave the car, and then fell heavily downwards.
In July 1852 the committee of the Kew Observatory resolved to institute a series of balloon ascents, with the view of investigating such meteorological and physical phenomena as require the presence of an observer at a great height in the atmosphere. John Welsh (1824–1859) of the Kew Observatory was the observer, and the great "Nassau Balloon" was employed, with Green himself as the aeronaut. Four ascents were made in 1852, viz. on the 17th and 26th of August, the 31st of October and the 10th of November. The heights attained were 19,510, 19,100, 12,640 and 22,930 ft., and the lowest temperatures met with in the four ascents were 8·7° F. (19,380 ft.), 12·4° F. (18,370 ft.), 16·4° F. (12,640 ft.) and 10·5° F. (22,370 ft.). The decline of temperature was very regular. A siphon barometer, dry and wet bulb thermometers, aspirated and free, and a Regnault hygrometer were taken up. Some air collected at a considerable height was found on analysis not to differ appreciably in its composition from air collected near the ground. For the original observations see Phil. Trans., 1853, pp. 311-346.
At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Aberdeen in 1859, a committee was appointed for the purpose of making observations in the higher strata of the atmosphere by means of the balloon. For two years nothing was effected, owing to the want both of an observer and of a suitable balloon. After its Glaisher’s ascents.reappointment at the Manchester meeting of 1861, the committee communicated with Henry Tracey Coxwell (1819–1900), an aeronaut who had made a good many ascents, and he agreed to construct a new balloon, of 90,000 cub. ft. capacity, on the condition that the committee would undertake to use it, and pay £25 for each high ascent made especially on its behalf, defraying
