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[[Left Column]] I first discovered 20 years ago, that, within a three miles' elevation, balloons could be directed eastward, devisting from that line and soon thereafter demonstrated the fact by doing the thing a number of times, once from Carlisle to Lancaster, Penn., twice from York to Lancaster, once from Springfield to Columbus, O., once from Auburn to Seracuse N.Y., and once from Bradford, Vt., to Great Falls, N.H., in all these cases by premeditation, I had never then read the detailed theory of trade winds, but, was simply learned by facts--always good instructors. Since that time, Maury has collaborated a system of wind and current charts that promise much more for the uses of aerial navigation than the most sanguine devotee of the art could have hoped for. Since deducing from his long and studious observations and researches the cours of the trade winds, their currents and counter currents, all the prominent balloon voyages have verified those deductions. Maury says: "As for the general system of atmos- "pheric circulation which I have been so long endeav- "oring to describe, the Bible tells it in a single sen- "tence--Eccl. i. 6: 'The wind goeth toward the "'south, and turneth about unto the south; it wheeleth "'about continually, and the wind returneth again ac- "'cording to his circuit.'" This is certainly a terse explanation of the trade wind system. This truthful observer thinks there is apparent a grand design in the ordination of the atmospheric motion. And so will every intelligent observer conclude who will take the trouble of its investigation! It has many offices to perform, he says. "To distribute "moisture over the surface, and temper the climate of "different latitudes, it would seem, are two great "offices assigned by the Creator to the ocean of air." Maury's explanations to his wind and current charts, published by the Federal Government last year, and of which Lieut. Lynch kindly funished be a copy a few weeks ago, substantiate every point of my theory of the wind currents as means through which ballooning can be systematically and profitably established. Maury says: "Have I not, therefore, very "good grounds for the opinion that the 'wind in his "circuit,' though apparently to us never so wayward, "is as obedient to law, and as subservient to order, as "were the morning stars when they 'say together.'" To this I can sincerely say, yes, you have! And permit me to add a third use of its design--sailing to and for the heavens with balloons for the purposes of commmerce, intelligence, science, appiness, and refinement, and to christianize all the ends of the earth. The Creator cna have no objection to this, if he has not specially so arranged it for our uses. Herein is the grand basis for a system of plain sailing. All we want is good balloons, and a little more energetic experience. Good balloons can be made of silk, diagonally braced and strengthened, and coated with my invented preparation of decomposed oil, as laid down in my directions for balloon-making. But somebody demurs to one's not knowing where we are sailing to, nor in what direciton we are going when we get above the clouds Mr. Haddock thinks we are compelled to "go it blind" in such cases, because he and his friend got into a wilderness; and hence infers that ballooning is not advanced beyond what their experienced troubles in their late trip would speak for it. Let me explain. Before we ascend, and when we are rising, we can see which way the clouds are moving, and when we become involved with the clouds we know we are moving with them. Now, when we rise above them and they appear quiescent beneath us, we are still moving in their direction, and with their velocity. Should the current above move faster or slower, there will be a relative diverse motion apparent in them. And should we enter a current moving at an angle with the clouds, we have again the course and velocity of our air-ship pointed out. The experienced aeronaut, like the experienced seaman, will, by intuitive reasoning, tell the course and speed of his vessel by these observations. My good friend Haddock will thus see that a quarter century of experience has learned me something in the art, and something hopeful enough to write letters for the public information about. I have also invented the "collapsing cord," a device which enables the aeronaut to render his balloon powerless in an instant--a very necessary contrivance in bringing a balloon to in stormy weather. This would have been put into the "Atlantic" before we sailed her from St. Louis had there been sufficient time left for doing it before her time of starting. I mention the matter to Mr. Gager the evening before we left. I have used the collapsing cord to explode my balloon when 12,000 feet high, and within three miles of Philadelphia, where thousands of spectators looked at it as the time. Some of the newspapers predicted it as certain destruction if attempted. I did this to show that balloons would inevitably become parachutes in case of their rupture when aloft. I have authentic records of thirteen balloons which have bursted or collapsed when aloft, and in no single instance were the aeronauts damaged in the least. Claytonn encountered one, so did Miss Lucretia Bradley, and McCoe, and I had two collapses when aloft; the others happened in Europe. "The vast untraversed fields of space which sur- "round the earth" are now within the reach of aeronautic skill but the world is slow in adopting and using the means. It has ever been so. The pioneers of all important achievements get more sensure than encouragement in their pursuits. Much of this, however, is caused by the counterfeits practiced upon the public. That has always a tendency to depreciate the genuine investigations, but that will not deter the earnest investigator from his hobby. I know I could make more money by taking up elephants, horses, and bulls than I can in purely scientific explorations, but as that would militate against the diginity of science, I have thus far abstained, but I am not sure that I will not resort to it in order to raise the necessary means to my circummundane outfit. If I do, the exhibitions shall be made classical, at least, and fit for the educated and elite of society to look at. Mr. Haddock wants to know how we are to tell when we get into the easterly current. If my experience and barometrical notings of fifteen years are worth anything, I can confidently say always when your barometer falls to 17 inches. Out of over one hundred [[Center Column]] trials this holds good. But any experienced air traveler can tell when he is going east without a barometer. The cummulus and nimbus clouds are the only kind that compose strata so dense that you cannot see the earth through them, and these clouds are never two miles high, and, as stated above, when you are over the cloud stratum you can readily tell whether you are moving with them or making an angle to their course. There are clouds above the great current, seven adn eight miles high but they are so attenuated that you can see through them as you can through the tail fo a comet. Experienced aeronauts become as familiar with clouds, as do old marines with gulf streams, fogs, and sea weeds. We are just about learning these things, and once generally understood, they will serve us to sail through the ocean of air above us with much more comfort and pleasure, and far greater speed, than we can on the oceans of water. I shall never enter into a controversy upon the scientific merits and uses of aerial navigation; yet I am never displeased in being touched up a little as to its progress in the hands of those from whom the public have a right to expect something. My nature is never to say anything concerning it but what is matter of fact, or that which is self evident scientific truth. Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 1859. JOHN WISE. -------- A SABBATH DAY IN NEW YORK. Correspondence of the Daily Evening Express. New York, May 11, 1859. After attendance to divine service in the morning and listening to a sermon and prayers, all well calculated to make one think of the salvation of that better part of our nature for which we must ever feel a deep concern, my Boston friend gave me an invitation after tea to take a walk with him up the Bowery, to attend, or at least look , at the undivine services carried on in that quarter of the city, on Sunday evening. The first thing that drew my attention was the display of merchandise, in open shops and stores, as though the Sabbath was over--or rather, the great and busy throng wending their way along the crowded thoroughfare, made it look like a gala day; and such too the sequel revealed it to be. The open stores, however, I took for granted were owned by Jews; and since we have unrestrained toleration of religion in this country, it is but charitable to suppose that these merchants observe some other day of the seven. After having passed some distance up the Bowery, my friend took me into the Folks Garten. This is really a theatre. After procuring tickets we passed through the vestibule into a well appointed circular theatre, with a pit, proscenium, gallery, orchestra, choir and saloons. In some of the saloons were games of chance, where you might invest from three cents to a dollar a chance; and these games, entirely new to me, were in active operation. The circular area below was filled with tables, around which were seated men, women and children, supplied with lager beer. The gallery was supplied by the same kind of goods and people. At times the brass band would strike up a lively hymn, indeed--the "Star Spangled Banner" or some other national air. In the orchestra the music was ever accompanied by a dancing girl--occasionally dressed in male attire; and all these things were going on with as much decorum as did the proceedings in the Episcopal Church wherein we attended the morning serivce. The people in the Folks Garten all appeared to enjoy themselves in the fullest measure of happiness. From the inside of the dome of this building was suspended a balloon, handsomely embellished and of about ten feet diameter. From this we wandered up some distance further in the Bowery and entered the Atlantic Garden; and here there was truly an ocean of people drinking lager beer and weis. This latter drink is a kind of beer that is drank out of glass tubes precisely of the shape of the glass chimney of an argand lamp. It is said to have no intoxicating qualities, and it tastes like Stiller's sotz. From this we went up further and entered a gymnasium, where lager beer was the institution, and the performance feats of strength, diversified with songs in English by German singers, so that we heard a practical demonstration of the "sweet German accent" in the "rich Irish" song of Larry O'Brien; but as the singer called it "Larry O'Pryan," this was ludicrous enough and entirely upset our gravity, Sunday evening as it was. The gymnast displayed some extraordinary feats of strength with a bar of railroad iron ten feet long, weighing 250 pounds. He twirled it around as fascile and dexterous as a Tipperary man would a cudgel. All these feats were accompanied by music and lager--the latter served by six American girls, who were kept constantly on the go. The next place we reconnoitered was a rather subterranean hall, going downward a flight of six steps; and upon entering, I took it for granted we were on the descending grade, and so it proved to be, inasmuch as here a number of the customers were asleep, and some half asleep, and a few whose eyes looked as though they had ballast on the lids. Here was singing by women and by men, some of them playing instruments that looked to me like banjos, though my friend informed me they were Mexican guitars. The performers looked rather seedy, and [[Right Column]] the other amusements of shooting mark with spring guns, and the playing on an instrument for money, which looked like a huge griddle filled with hackle teeth, through which a ball was rolled towards figures, was rather too much for my onot over much fastidious nerves, and I thought enough had transpired for one Sunday evening's observation and contemplation. I am not prepared to speak for or against this thing. Many well meaning people approve of it because it is peculiar to the people who enjoy it; and true it is, I did not see in all these places any disturbance--but nevertheless to my unaccustomed eyes and ears it looked like all disorder, and it did appear to me that too much liberty led to licentiousness. While contemplating these things I was forcibly impressed with the maxim, that "there is a sufficient reason for every thing." The great mass of these people belonged to the hardy sons and daughters of toil, who are cooped up in their narrow cells of houses during the week, and therefore enjoy the recreation of music and other amusements tempered with that world-wide popular beverage. Lager, as much as the grandees possibly can the pleasures of the parlor and piano, tempered with imperial tea and heidsic champagne. With my friend--and he a strict church member--I was willing to agree that there was no more harm in it than there was in the recreation of the "higher" classes of society. QUAERE. ------------ PICTURED out upon the pages of HARPER'S Weekly, of the current week, is Lowe's mammoth balloon, which now seeks a starting-place from our city, and the proprietor of which asks the temporary use of the old Crystal Palace site, for that purpose. Its dimensions, some 300 feet in height and 130 feet in diameter, were given in an account which we published some days since. If it needed anything more than the conviction of a reflective mind, to assure one of the impotency of present steam power in propelling such enormous hulks, it would be found in looking at the plan drawn upon paper. A metallic life boat, 30 feet long, provided with paddle wheels about three feet in diameter, is represented attached below the balloon, and steaming through the atmosphere at a fair rate of speed, an umbrella machine sticking out of the bow, and a huge oar steering the concern at the stern. This is to be propelled by an ericcsson caloric engine of four horse power, fed with fine coal and alcohol. When it is considered that the huge balloon above it is to rise nearly one hundred feet higher than the top of Trinity Church steeple, and that its diameter and surface exposed to the wind will far exceed the whole size of this enormous structure, the utter insignificance of a paltry row boat steamer, towards its control, is at once recognized. The balloon itself will be a curiosity, and if it succeeds in taking up and down safely its ten or a dozen passengers, (including a New York editor,) who are to accompany it, its reputaion will be made and it can make successful ascensions all over the country. But the less said about its propulsion with a pair of three foot pin wheels, the better. ----------- MR. WISE'S BALLOON--Mr. Wise's balloon in Hamilton Park was so badly injured by his attempt to keep the gas in her during the gale of Wednesday night that she ws rendered unserviceable. A considerable number of people went up to the Park yesterday in spite of the threatening weather to see and to go up in the balloon. Why they were disappointed his card below explains: To the Editor of The N. Y. Tribune. SIR: The very high wind last night injured the balloon Jupiter to such an extent that it has been impossible to make use of her to-day. She was well ballasted down when I placed her in charge of the watchman yesterday evening, but during the night so great was the force of the wind that she moved the sand-bags which were attached to netting--some 1,500 pounds weight--so that they did not draw evenly. The result was that the netting was torn near the top, allowing a considerable portion of the globe to protrude from it. A hole was also made in the globe itself through which the gas was slowly escaping. This morning I had the balloon taken into one of the large halls over the Third avenue Railroad Depot, kindly placed at my service by Mr. Darling, the President of the Company, and the day has been spent in thoroughly repairing the damage. On Saturday I hope to commence inflating her at 8 o'clock in the morining. If the wind is not too strong I will make ascensions attached to a rope until 4 p.m. At that hour I will make a clear ascension, taking two passengers. Girard House, Sept. 29, 1859. CHAS. E. WISE. MR. WISE'S BALLOON COLLAPSED.--Owing to the accident to Mr. Wise's balloon on Wednesday, the silk becoming torn by collision with the trees, the contemplated excursion was not made yesterday. Early in the morning the aerial monster was exhausted, hauled off for repairs, and the proprietor expected to have all in readiness for several voyages to-day. Hamilton Park presented a lively appearance, with the numbers of visiters called out by the fine day, and stragglers from the National Guard troop, and one of our infantry regiments drilling on the square. Should the ascension come off to-day a large crowd may be expected, and prudence would dictate some better arrangements for keeping the space near the balloon clear, and securing the windlass, so that it will not be so liable to be drawn up with the voyageurs.