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

on.-The Double Receptacle.-The Covering.-The Car.-The Mysteri

is easy to comprehend that the balloon-that marvellous vehicle which was

it with hydrogen gas, which is fourteen and a half times lighter than common air. The production

ey and his apparatus, he should have to carry a weight of 4,000 pounds; therefore he had to find out what would be

orty-four thousand eight hundred and forty-seven cubic feet; or, in other words, forty-four

ng therefore only two hundred and seventy-six pounds-a difference of three thousand seven hundred and twenty-four pounds in equilibrium is produced; and it is this

on, it would be entirely filled; but that would not do, because, as the balloon continued to mount into the more rarefied layers of th

forty-seven cubic feet of gas, to give his balloon nearly double capacity he arranged it in that elongated, oval shape which has come to be preferred. The horizontal diamet

in the air, he could, by throwing out ballast, keep himself up with the other. But the management of two balloons

e smaller in the larger one. His external balloon, which had the dimensions given above, contained a less one of the same shape, which was only forty-five feet in horizontal, and sixty-eight feet in vertical diameter. The

and, were it completely emptied, the smaller one would still remain intact. The outer envelope might then be cast off as a useless encumbranc

o the outside balloon, such as getting torn,

y, resinous substance is absolutely water-proof, and also resists acids and gas perfectly. T

ide balloon being about eleven thousand six hundred square feet, its envelope weighed six hundred and fifty pounds. The envelope of the second or inner ballo

empen cord, and the two valves were the object of the most m

d with a slight covering of iron, and protected below by a system of elastic springs, to deaden the shoc

ed by means of pipes furnished with stopcocks. He joined to these a spiral, two inches in diameter, which terminated in two br

be adjusted until some future moment, was packed up, separately, along with a very strong Buntzen electric battery. This apparatus had been so

mometers, two compasses, a sextant, two chronometers, an artificial horizon, a

not intend to make experiments in physics; he merely wanted to be able to know in what direct

ughly tested iron anchors, and a light bu

lted meat, and pemmican, a preparation which comprises many nutritive elements in a small space. Besides a

ed, for it must be remembered that the equilibrium of a balloon floating in the atmosphere is extremely

gs and blankets that were to be the bedding of the journey, nor some fo

is various items, and their

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outside ball

second ballo

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ican, bisc

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hydrogen....

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him. He took only two hundred pounds of ballast for "unforeseen emergencies," as he remark