Five Weeks in a Balloon / Or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen

rnals.-Mr. Petermann backs his Friend Dr. Ferguson.-Reply of the S

y 15th, the Daily Telegraph published an

y to that enigma which the learned men of sixty centuries have not been able to decipher. In other days, to seek

Hope to the basin of the Zambesi; Captains Burton and Speke, in the discovery of the great interior lakes, have opened three highways to modern civilization. TH

together by the daring project of Dr. Samuel Ferguson, whose fine expl

well informed, the point of departure for this surprising journey is to be the island of Zanzibar, u

day, at the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, and the sum of twent

the progress of this enterprise, which has

it stirred up a storm of incredulity; Dr. Ferguson passed for a purely chimerical personage of the

ns de la Societe Geographique of Geneva, which very wittily sho

Geneva journal to the most absolute silence. Herr Petermann knew Dr. Fer

ondon; the factories of Lyons received a heavy order for the silk required for the body of the balloon; and, fina

nnals of Travels, Geography, History, and Archaeology, by M. V. A. Malte-Brun"); and a searching essay in the Zeitschrift fur Allgemeine Erdkunde, by Dr. W. Koner, triumphantly demonstrated the feasibility of the journey, its chances of success, the nature of the obstacles existing, the immense advantages of the aerial mode of locomotion, and found fault with nothing but the selected

ry monopolized by England. It therefore rather ridiculed the doctor's scheme, and urge

Journal of Evangelical Missions to the Revue Algerienne et Coloniale, from the Annales de la Propagation de la

f, which, some contended, would not be undertaken at all, and which was really contemplated, according to others; thirdly, upon the success or failure of the enterpris

ane. On his part, he willingly gave the most accurate information touching his project. He was very easily approached, being naturally the most affable man in the world. More than

cept none; and, when he was asked whether he had discovered something of his own for that purpose, he constantly refu