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NEW-YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1859.

BALLOONS.

The early poets, prophets, bards, and sealds [[?]], cast their eyes heavenward, sighed for the wings of a dove, and imagined flying supernal beings, ether-cleaving genii, distance-destroying magicians, witches, and demons.  To free the soul from the clod of the earth this side of the grave; to render the body imponderable and superior to the laws of gravitation, to that fatalistic force which holds it down--this constituted the most exalted idealism of the early lyrists and romancers.  The Orient literature glistens with this supramundane machinery.  A moral truth or theological dogma was invariably enforced by a recitation of the violation of some obvious physical law which keeps man to the ground.  To this day, that literature and its derivatives are so distinguished.  A truth plainly told in the East will not be believed.  It must be mixed up with the impossible.  The epics of Homer, equally with the Vedas and Vedant, the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and the Knight-Errant Tales of the Middle ages, all deal in supernatural machinery.  This universality of a desire to rise above the earth and soar through the air, was the lyrical foreshadowing of the possibilities of science.
The first account we have of an attempt to make a machine of any kind to fly through the air, is of the artificial pigeon of Archytas, a celebrated geometrician, who lived about 400 years before our era.  According to Aulus Gellius, "Archytas constructed a "wooden pigeon which could fly by means of me"chanical powers and an aura spirit."  The descriptions of this mechanical bird are obscure.  There is also an account of a man who tried to fly to Rome, under the Emperor Nero, and lost his lief thereby.  Roger Bacon, in the thirteenth century, imagined the possibility of a large hollow globe of copper or other suitable metal, wrought extremely thin, in order to have it as light as possible, and to be filled with etherial air or liquid fire, and then launched from some elevated point, when it will float like a vessel on the water.  Then came a succession of attempts to fly through the air, and it is asserted, that, with artificial wings,alternately running and flying, immense speed was achieved.  According to the great aeronaut, Mr. John Wise, this is a most delightful mode of traveling.  This writer, in his admirable and interesting work on aeronautics, says, if we take a balloon of limited size, about 18 feet in diameter each way, it will, when inflated with hydrogen gas, be capable of raising 160 pounds, independent of its own weight.  Now, if this be so fastened to a man's body as not to interfere with the free use of his arms and legs, he may then ballast himself so as to be a trifle heavier than the upward tendency of the balloon, which will be nearly in equilibrio.  If then, he provide himself with a pair of wings, made on the bird principle, with socket-joints to slip over his arms at the shoulders, and a grasping handle internally of each one, at the distance from the shoulder-joint of the wing, as the distance is from the shoulder-joint to his hand, he may beat against the air with his wings, and bound against the air with his feet, so as to make at least a hundred yards at each bound.   This, Mr. Wise says he has often done in the direction of a gentle wind, with the aid of his feet alone, after his balloon had descended to the earth; and, on one occasion, traversed a pine forest of several miles in length, by bounding against the tops of the trees.  Such a contrivance, he says, would be of inestimable advantage to exploring expeditions; landings to otherwise inaccessible mountains; escapes from surrounding icebergs; explorations of volcanic craters; traversing vast swamps and morasses; walking over lakes and seas; bounding isthmuses, straits, and promontories, or exploring the cloud-capped peaks of Chimborazo, could all, according to our author, thus be easily accomplished.
Notwithstanding nearly eighty years have elapsed since the discovery of balloons in France, up t this time no practical advance has been made in absolutely navigating the air.  The French Republic, with the immense eagerness in scientific investigation which characterized it, instituted a secret school of aerostation for the purpose of making balloons useful in war.  The result of this was that in June, 1794, observations were made of the Austrian camp; and by signals conveyed to General Jourdan, he was enabled to gain the victory of Fleurus.  A balloon was sent with Napoleon's army to Egypt, and after the capitulation at Cairo was returned to France.  One, if report do not exaggerate, did immense service with M. Godard, in reconnoitering before the battle of Solferino. 
Some valuable observations have been made by means of scientific instruments during ascensions; Biot and Lussac in the early part of this century leading the way.  The first ascension in paris, in 1783, is recorded in the Proces Verbal of the Academy of Sciences.  By that we learn that on November 21, 1783, at the Chateau de la Muette, an experiment was made with the aerostatic machine of M. de Montgofilier.  The sky was partly clouded, wind north-west At eight minutes after noon, a mortar gave notice that the machine was about to be filled.  In eight minutes, notwithstanding the wind, it was ready to get off, the Marquis d'Arlandes and M. Pilatre de Rosier being in the car. It was at first intended to retain the machine awhile with ropes to judge what weight it would bear 
and see that all was right.  But the wind prevented it rising vertically, and directed it toward one of the garden walls; the ropes made several rents in it, one of six feet long.  It was brought down again,and in two hours was set right.  Having been filled again, it set off at fifty-four minutes past one, carrying the same persons.  It rose in the most majestic manner, and when it was about 250 feet high, the intrepid voyagers took off their hats and saluted the spectators.  No one could help feeling a mingled sentiment of fear and admiration.  The voyagers were soon undistinguishable; but the machine, hovering upon the horizon, and displaying the most beautiful figure, rose at least three thousand feet high, and was visible all the time.  The account goes on to give other particulars, and is signed by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, among others, "of the Academy of Sciences."  The machine was seventy feet high, and forty-six in diameter; it contained 60,000 cubic feet, and carried a weight from 1,600 to 1,700 pounds.
Mr. Wise is of opinion that great improvements may be made in the fabrication of balloons; and since his celebrated voyage from St. Louis to the lakes, a distance of 1,200 miles, he maintains the certain existence of a current to the East which will enable him to cross the Atlantic with a balloon.  It is certain that even with the present means of making balloons--and the difficulties attending the dishevelled efforts in constructing them with small pecuniary means--ballooning is not a particularly dangerous mode of traveling. Mr. Wise is a living proof of this.  He has made about five hundred ascensions of various kinds, and is still uninjured.  His balloon has burst mid-air, and came down parachute-wise, in which operation he says there is no danger.  This is a very comfortable fact, for it would be difficult to imagine a more awkward predicament than to have the inflated ship of air collapse at three miles hight, without such assurance.  On the subject of the hygienic effects of ballooning, Mr. Wise is enthusiastic.  The blood, we are told, begins to course more freely when up a mile or two with a balloon--the excretory vessels are more freely opened--the gastric juice pours into the stomach more rapidly--the liver, kidneys, and heart work under expanded action in a highly calorified atmosphere--the brain receives and gives more exalted inspirations--the whole animal and mental system become intensely quickened and more of the chronio morbid matter is exhaled and thrown off in an hour or two while two miles up of a fine Summer's day, than the invalid can get rid of in a voyage from New-York to Madeira. The appetite is immensely increased, and the spirits elevated.
In reading Mr. Wise, one feels aerially inclined, and predisposed to believe with him that great problems, commercial, international, and social, are yet to come of navigating the air; and that the art will be redeemed from its present very magnificent and sublime but unproductive state.

BALLOONING.

The aspiring Mr. La Mountain has printed, since his descent--this is not expletive, because he might have sent it down by parachute express to the newspapers, and never himself have sunk to this lower sphere to read the proof, in which case how much more interesting would it have been!--but he has fallen, and has printed, and we have also printed, the usual three columns which sailors of the atmosphere always publish, in order that a tender dispositional public may see how nearly they came to cervical fractue (Ang., breaking their necks) without being fractured after that fashion.  All these airy records to the unscientific mind seem not unlike.  All air-sailors appear to suffer the same things.  Sometimes they are very cold, and then they put on their great coats.  Sometimes they descend to rapidly, and then they throw their great coats overboard.  Sometimes they are hungry, and then they eat.  Sometimes they are thirsty, and then they drink.  Sometimes their noses bleed, and the nasal sanguification is recorded in the same sentence with the barometrical observations, if any happen to be made.  Generally, they indulge in a deal of the finest writing about the appearance of the earth under them, of the stars above them, of the thunder-storms in the distance.  When they are in trouble they write, "Oh, misery!"  When they are out of trouble they exclaim, "Joy!"  These are Mr. La Mountain's own expressions, but it is fair to admit that his "misery" seems to have been much greater than his "joy."  He appears to have been not merely as joyous as, but much colder and a deal more hungry than, any other air-traveler of modern times.  That he was very uncomfortable, very much in want of his breakfast, in great need of dry pantaloons, and suffered generally inside and out, we verily believe.  That he cried when he lost his balloon, that, as he says, "tears blinded his sight," we can also believe; for the dear old Atlantic must have been a valuable piece of property: but is he not rather hyperbolical, even for an aeronaut, when he compares his emotions to those of "a father over "the coffin of a beloved child?"  "Perhaps it was "foolish and nonsensical," says he.  It certainly was, if he felt as he says he did.  Crying, under such circumstances, was precisely the last amusement for a man to indulge in.  The cheerfulest part of Mr. La Mountain's narrative is when, safe and sound, he sits down to "a table laden with "carrots, potatoes, pork, and so forth."  He calls these honest edibles "a revulsion," and says that at first "it was altogether too much."  However, he had the good fortune to "come to his stomach," which soon became pleasingly "ravenous."
It is a singular fact--or rather it is not singular at all--that far more than a moiety of this aeronautic narrative is devoted to Mr. La Mountain's adventures, not in atmospheric limbo, but upon the solid earth.  This, for the interest of science, is to be regretted.  A gentleman with a passion for trouble and starvation, who wishes in the morning to be able to exclaim "Misery!" and in the evening to exclaim "Joy!" can easily be gratified by missing his way for this purpose within a few miles of this city.  When enthusiastic air-voyagers will leave this honest old earth, we expect them to have the nosebleed, we expect them to be cold, we expect them to be hungry, we expect them to be uncomfortable in the air, and hardly less so when they have landed.  To read these things at our "slip"pered ease," over the morning muffin and coffee, is delightful to the sensitive mind.  So it is delightful to read of a poor shipwrecked sailor tormented by Arabs, or of a wretched captured soldier scalped by Indians; but those of us who are the most eager for novelties do not ask any man and brother to voluntarily submit himself to slavery or scalping for the sake of presenting to us a pleasing dish of horrors.  Suppose that Mr. La Mountain should choose to enter a hot oven, calling the operation an experiment in Natural Philosophy!  Are we to cry because he is taken out crispy and overdone? When Sir Humphrey Davy inhaled various new and possibly noxious gasses, he ran a risk of a valuable life not altogether foolishly; because if he had died, then we should have known that the gas was deadly, and surviving the heroic experiment, he was able to give the world an intelligible account of his sensations.  But what has Mr. La Mountain to tell us?  That he was cold?  We knew he would be.  That he was hungry? That,too, was before probable.  That he ascended with ease?  Of course he did.  That his descent was perilous?  Who expected it to be otherwise?  Clearly,Mr. La Mountain is not a Gay-Lussac, nor a Biot.  We defy any body to find in his narrative anything of the slightest importance to science.  He is no more valuable in his way than Mons. Blondin is in his.  Both run great risks for the sake of money or of notoriety.  That is all.
It is easy to see that thus far the balloon is just where it was fifty years ago--a great, beautiful, fascinating toy.  An aeronaut encounters now almost as many perils as the Montgolfiere did in 1783.
To be sure, a balloon raised by the gases now in use is a safer vehicle than a balloon raised by rarified air--but the perils of ballooning are not thereby perceptibly diminished, because they are inherently so various and so enormous.  Nothing has yet been done to dissipate the doubts freely expressed by scientific men of the impossibility of controlling the course of the balloon.  It would be presumptuous to say that the end can never be attained.  It is perfectly certain that it is not yet in sight.

BALLOON ASCENSION.  On Thursday evening quite a large meeting assembled at Market Hall, favorable to having a balloon ascension on the 2nd of October, the day after the Agricultural Fair.  Ralph C. Huse, Esq. presided, and Moses A.currier was chosen Secretary.  It was unanimously voted that there be an ascension, and the following committee of two from each ward was appointed to correspond with Mr Wise, and raise the necessary funds.
Ward 1--Joseph M. Tappan, Nathaniel Greeley
Ward 2--Ralph C. Huse, William E. Currier.
Ward 3--Warren Currier, George H. Lyford.
Ward 4--Jonathan Bickford, D. S. Blake.
Ward 5--John T Page, Samuel F. Towle.
Ward 6--Moses A. Currier, John J. Currier.
Voted that the committee fill the vacancies.