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Up in the Clouds, by R.M. Ballantyne
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Up in the Clouds, by R.M. Ballantyne
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Title: Up in the Clouds Balloon Voyages
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: June 6, 2007 [EBook #21708]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UP IN THE CLOUDS ***
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Up in the Clouds, by R.M. Ballantyne
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UP IN THE CLOUDS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.
CHAPTER ONE.
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CHAPTER ONE.
BALLOON VOYAGES.
TREATS OF EARLY EFFORTS TO FLY, ETCETERA.
It is man's nature to soar intellectually, and it seems to have been his ambition from earliest ages to soar
physically.
Every one in health knows, or at some period of life must have known, that upward bounding of the spirit
which induces a longing for the possession of wings, that the material body might be wafted upwards into
those blue realms of light, which are so attractive to the eye and imagination of poor creeping man that he has
appropriately styled them the heavens.
Man has envied the birds since the world began. Who has not watched, with something more than admiration,
the easy gyrations of the sea-mew, and listened, with something more than delight, to the song of the soaring
lark?
To fly with the body as well as with the mind, is a wish so universal that the benignant Creator Himself seems
to recognise it in that most attractive passage in Holy Writ, wherein it is said that believers shall "mount up
with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
Of course man has not reached the middle of the nineteenth century without making numerous attempts to fly
bodily up to the skies. Fortunately, however, such ambitious efforts have seldom been made except by the
intellectually enthusiastic. Prosaic man, except in the case of the Tower of Babel, has remained content to
gaze upwards with longing desire, and only a few of our species in the course of centuries have possessed
temerity enough to make the deliberate effort to ride upon the wings of the wind.
Naturally, the first attempts were, like most beginnings, simple and imitative. The birds flew with wings,
therefore man put on artificial wings and essayed to fly like the birds. It was not until many grievous
disappointments and sad accidents had befallen him, that he unwillingly gave up wings in despair, and set to
work to accomplish his ends by more cumbrous and complex machinery.
Very early in the world's history, however, "flying machines" were made, some of which were doubtless
intended by their honest inventors to carry men through the air, while others were mere shams, made by
designing men, wherewith to impose upon the ignorant for wicked ends of their own; and some of these last
were, no doubt, believed to be capable of the feats attributed to them.
The credulity of the ancients is not to be wondered at when we reflect on the magical illusions which science
enables us to produce at the present day--illusions so vivid and startling that it requires the most elaborate
explanations by adepts and philosophers to convince some among their audiences that what they think they
see is absolutely not real! No wonder that the men of old had firm faith in the existence of all kinds of flying
machines and creatures.
They believed that fiery dragons were created by infernal machination, which, although not what we may call
natural creatures, were nevertheless supposed to rush impetuous through the sky, vomiting flames and
scattering the seeds of pestilence far and wide. In those dark ages, writers even ventured to describe the
method of imitating the composition of such terrific monsters! A number of large hollow reeds were to be
bound together, then sheathed completely in skin, and smeared over with pitch and other inflammable matters.
This light and bulky engine, when set on fire, launched during thick darkness from some cliff into the air, and
borne along by the force of the wind, would undoubtedly carry conviction to the minds of the populace, whilst
it would fill them with amazement and terror!
 
CHAPTER ONE.
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Sometimes, however, those who attempted to practise on the credulity of their fellows were themselves
appalled by the results of their contrivances. Such was the case so late as the year 1750, when a small Roman
Catholic town in Swabia was almost entirely burnt to ashes by an unsuccessful experiment made by some of
the lowest order of priests for the astonishment, if not the edification, of their flocks. An attempt was made by
them to represent the effigy of Martin Luther, whom the monks believed to be in league with Satan, under the
form of a winged serpent with a forked tail and hideous claws. Unfortunately Martin's effigy, when ignited,
refused to fly, and, instead of doing what was required of it, fell against the chimney of a house to which it set
fire. The flames spread furiously in every direction, and were not subdued until the town was nearly
consumed.
In the early part of the sixteenth century a very determined attempt at flying was made by an Italian who
visited Scotland, and was patronised by James the Fourth. He gained the favour of that monarch by holding
out to him hopes of replenishing his treasury by means of the "philosopher's stone." The wily Italian managed,
by his plausible address, to obtain a position which replenished, to some degree, his own empty purse, having
been collated by royal favour to the abbacy of Tungland, in Galloway. Being an ingenious fellow, and
somewhat, apparently, of an enthusiast, he spent some of his leisure time in fashioning a pair of huge wings of
various plumage, with which he actually undertook to fly through the air from the walls of Stirling Castle to
France! That he believed himself to be capable of doing so seems probable, from the fact that he actually
made the attempt, but fell to the ground with such violence as to break his leg. He was sharp-witted, however,
for instead of retiring crest-fallen at his failure, he coolly accounted for the accident by saying, "My wings
were composed of various feathers; among them were the feathers of dunghill fowls, and they, by a certain
sympathy, were attracted to the dunghill; whereas, had my wings been composed of eagles' feathers alone, the
same sympathy would have attracted them to the region of the air!"
About a century later a poor monk, whose boldness and enterprise were more conspicuous than his prudence,
attempted a similar feat. He provided himself with a gigantic pair of wings, constructed on a principle
propounded by the rector of the grammar school of Tubingen, in 1617, and, leaping from the top of a high
tower, fell to the ground, broke both his legs, and lost his life.
It was long before men came to see and admit that in regard to this they were attempting to accomplish the
impossible.
There can be no doubt that it is absolutely impossible for man to fly by the simple power of his own muscles,
applied to any sort of machinery whatever. This is not an open question. That man may yet contrive to raise
himself in the air by means of steam or electricity, or some other motive power, remains to be seen. It does not
seem probable, but no one can say authoritatively that it is impossible. It is demonstrable, however, that to
rise, or even to remain suspended, in the air by means of machinery impelled by human force alone is a feat
which is as much an impossibility as it is for a man, by the strength of his own legs, to leap thirty or forty
times his own length,--a grasshopper can do that easily, and a bird can fly easily, but a man cannot, and never
will be able to do so, because his peculiar conformation forbids it.
This was first demonstrated by Borelli, an eminent Italian mathematician and philosopher, who lived in a
fertile age of discovery, and was thoroughly acquainted with the true principles of mechanics and pneumatics.
He showed, by accurate calculation, the prodigious force, which in birds must be exerted and maintained by
the pectoral muscles, with which the all-wise Creator has supplied them, and, by applying the same principles
to the structure of the human frame, he proved how extremely disproportionate was the strength of the
corresponding muscles in man. In fact, the man who should attempt to fly like a bird would be guilty of
greater folly and ignorant presumption than the little infant who should endeavour to perform the feats of a
gladiator! It is well for man in all things to attain, if possible, to a knowledge of what certainly lies beyond his
powers, for such knowledge prevents the waste and misdirection of energies, as well as saving from
disappointment and other evil results.
CHAPTER ONE.
5
But many of those enthusiasts, who have attempted at various periods of the world's history to fly, did not fall
into the error which we have attempted to point out. On the contrary, they went intelligently to work; their
only aim being modestly to fly somewhat after the manner of a bird, but they all failed; nevertheless one
philosopher, of modern times, stoutly continued to assert the opinion that there is no impossibility in man
being able to fly apparently , though not really, like a bird. He did not hold that man could ever fly as high, or
as far, or as fast, or in any degree as easily, as a bird. All that he ventured to say was, that he might perhaps fly
somewhat like one .
As the plan of this philosopher is rather curious, we shall detail it.
It is well known that balloons, filled with appropriate gas, will rise. Big balloons and little ones are equally
uppish in their tendencies. It is also known that rotundity of form is not essential to the successful rising of a
balloon. "Well, then," says this philosopher, "what is to prevent a man making two balloons, flattish, and in
the form of wings, which, instead of flying away with him, as ordinary balloons would infallibly do, should be
so proportioned to his size and weight as that they would not do more than raise him an inch or so off the
ground, and so keep him stotting and bobbing lightly about, something like the bright thin india-rubber balls
with which children are wont to play now-a-days?
"Having attained this position of, so to speak, readiness to fly, there is nothing to prevent him from propelling
himself gently along the surface of the ground by means of fans, or, if you choose, small flexible cloth wings
attached to the hands and arms. The legs might also be brought into play a little. It is obvious, however, that
such wings would require to be mounted only in calm weather, for a breeze of wind would infallibly sweep
the flyer off the face of the earth! We would only observe, in conclusion, that, however ridiculous this method
of flying may appear in your eyes, this at least may be said in its favour, that whereas all other plans that have
been tried have signally failed, this plan has never failed--never having been tried! We throw the idea before a
discriminating public, in the hope that some aspiring enthusiast, with plenty of means and nerve, and no
family to mourn his loss, may one day prove, to the confusion of the incredulous, that our plan is not a mere
flight of imagination!"
When men began to find that wings refused in any circumstances to waft them to the realms of ether, they set
about inventing aerial machines in which to ascend through the clouds and navigate the skies.
In the fourteenth century a glimmering of the true principles on which a balloon could be constructed was
entertained by Albert of Saxony, a monk of the order of Saint Augustin, but he never carried his theories into
practice. His opinion was that, since fire is more attenuated than air, and floats above the region of our
atmosphere, all that was necessary would be to enclose a portion of such ethereal substance in a light hollow
globe which would thus be raised to a certain height, and kept suspended in the sky, and that by introducing a
portion of air into the globe it would be rendered heavier than before, and might thus be made to descend.
This was in fact the statement of the principles on which fire-balloons were afterwards constructed and
successfully sent up, excepting that air heated by fire, instead of fire itself, was used.
Others who came after Albert of Saxony held the same theory, but they all failed to reduce it to practice, and
most of these men coupled with their correct notions on the subject, the very erroneous idea that by means of
masts, sails, and a rudder, a balloon might be made to sail through the air as a ship sails upon the sea. In this
they seem to have confounded two things which are dissimilar, namely, a vessel driven through water, and a
vessel floating in air.
The fallacy here may be easily pointed out. A ship is driven through water by a body in motion, namely, wind,
while its rudder is dragged through a body comparatively at rest, namely, water; hence the rudder slides
against or is pushed against the water, and according as it is turned to one side or the other, it is pushed to one
side or the other, the stern of the ship going along with it, and the bow, of course, making a corresponding
motion in the opposite direction. Thus the ship is turned or "steered," but it is manifest that if the ship were at

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