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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1873.
MIDAIR ACROSS THE OCEAN
FROM AMERICA TO ENGLAND IN A BALLOON- THE MEANS BY WHICH THE TRIP IS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED-THE AIR SHIP,AND HOW IT IS WORKED-A LECTURE OF ABSORBING INTEREST.
  The following is the report of the lecture delivered by Professor Wise, at the hail of the Franklin Institute, on Thursday night. Insufficient space forbade its insertion yesterday, but it is of such interest that room is -ade for its publication in this issue.
  Professor Wise, after reviewing the early story of the various aerostatic contrivances as mentioned in mythology and the Bible, the lecturer referred to the digrams of the machinery devised for the Donaldson's transatlantic aerial voyage.
That we are acquainted with the necessary mechanical details and the elements of nature, with which to bring about a system of aerial navigation, -aid the lecturer, is certainly demonstrable as was that of submarine telegraphy before the first cable was laid across the bed of the ocean. Scientists, as a general rule, did not enter the belief of the possibility of sending an electrical impulse [[through]] two thousand miles of wire anchored in the bottom of the sea; neither did they accord success to the laying of the cable without breach or blemish, should such an experiment be attempted. Systematic aerial voyages over the sea and [[around]] the globe find equally discouraging sentiment from the quarter in which great new born enterprises should find their animating stimulus. Nevertheless, this very thing will soon find its groundwork established in a successful experimental trip from the shores of America to the main land of Europe. After that it will be an easy thing to make the egg stand on its end.
  Mr. Washington H Donaldson, who is now agitating this subject in his proposed project of ballooning across the Atlantic the coming summer, has already learned in his thirty aerial voyages that there are certain natural highways in the atmosphere to serve, not only the purpose of floating an air ship across the Atlantic, but to enable it to go to any part of the globe, without the aid of propelling machinery. The zone lying between the thirty-fifth and sixtieth parallel is a nodal zone, in which the southwest winds are constantly interfering more or less with the winds from the northwest, and when they are not sliding smoothly over or under each other they give rise to atmospheric and electrical disturbances. These two currents induce an intermediate current which moves nearly due past. During the winter and the early part of summer these currents prevail over the ship route of the Liverpool and New York liners, clear across the Atlantic, causing head winds to the sail and steam craft all the way England to the shores of America.
  With reference to a transatlantic voyage as intended by Dondalson, the track is laid down, and -t becomes simply a matter of endurance of float. To make a balloon that will retain its buoyancy long enough to float from America to Europe, is not a problem to be solved, since Mr. Giffard, the inventor of the famous "injector," had one constructed a few years ago which, after being inflated, retained its buoyancy sufficient to raise up twenty -ersions twenty- five days after its inflation, a sufficient length of time to have circumnavigated the globe.
  Mr. Donaldson intends to be provided for any contingent emergencies, by carrying a life boat and [[a]] supplemental balloon to act as a tug to this boat, and with this contrivance alone from five to six hundred miles per day can be made. A life boat thus provided would skip from wave to wave over a rough sea, and would make much better headway than one propelled through the water by wheel or paddle. Such a contingency is not more likely to become necessary than that of the safety rail to a sea steamer, but it is well enough to be fortified on all sides.
  Mr. Donaldson submitted his project to me -or an opinion of its feasibility. I gave -t my earnest approval, adding a few details to it, and, confident of its entire success, volunteered to join in the adventure, to which [[he]] cheerfully assented. Such an expedition, successfully carried out, will be of more value than the mere demonstration of crossing the Atlantic with a balloon. It will go far to develop meteorological science, and to make us more intimately acquainted with the functions of that grand aerial ocean that surrounds us on every side. There is no good and just cause for the demurrer this project generally meets. The epithets of foolhardiness and visionary ideas find not their utterances in the vocabulary of true and substantial science underlying the principles of aerial navigation. The unbelief and coldness manifested toward this project are purely attributable to a proper want of its comprehension. There is nothing that comes so closely to our well-being and vital progress as a thorough understanding of the nature and functions of the atmosphere. It supplies us our life's blood, and builds up the grains and grasses that, in -n their turn, directly and indirectly build up our flesh and bones, and it will bear us in the folds of its bosom to any part of the earth if we will but cultivate its providential acquaintance to that end.
  Professor Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, in reply to the question of an aerial current that should serve the purposes of this project, answered:- "The upper trade wind from the west is an established scientific fact of every day's occurrence. We feel quite an interest in your contemplated transatlantic voyage, and we believe you to be the very best person to accomplish it." Such was the opinion of one of the most noted scientists of the age. As early as June, 1859, Prof. Henry, while speaking of "Meteorology," at the Springfield meeting of the American Scientific Association, said, in his discourse, that "he had conferred with Mr. Wise, and thought that the success of the proposition to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a balloon by no means improbable. And -- look upon the balloon as a very important instrument in meteorology, and the observations of Mr. Wise have been of great value."
  It was this great scientist that encouraged my explorations of thunder clouds, to go into them during rain, hail and snow, lightning and thunder; and, however humbly that duty has been performed, it served to throw its increment of an "increase and diffusion of knowledge among men' upon the meteorological records of the age.
  In conclusion, said the lecturer, if this project had nothing more in it than a mere exploration of the conditions of the atmosphere across the seas, and to learn us the commercial relations existing between ocean currents and the air currents, and a rational analysis of the effects of that congenial moisture thrown upon the British Islands by the gulf stream, developing, as it does, a superior animal creation and agricultural products, these considerations alone should commend it to the study and support of the intelligent and progressive. It is a great developing art, and dull indeed must be the intellect that would fail to find a reverential inspiration of admiration for the Divine works of nature as viewed from an isolated point in mid air.
  The lecturer was frequently applauded, and the confidence of the intelligent audience present was gained, step by step, as he proceeded in his explanation of the project,
  Before the audience dispersed Mr. Hector Orr proposed a resolution complimenting the speaker, and expressive of the confidence in the audience as to the feasibility of the project and the ability of the parties proposing to do it, which was unanimously adopted. 

THE EPIZOOTIC AND OZONE.
  The following paper was read before the Meteorological Section of the Franklin Institute, at its December meeting, by Professor John Wise, the aeronaut, who received a vote of thanks for it from the Section : 
  The horse disease, that has swept over so great a portion of the United States, invites an investigation as to its origin and spread. It is not my intention to discuss the pathology of Epizooty, but by co-ordination to bring its characteristic development into the train of closely-observed phenomena connected with endemic disorders of that kind. While it is well known that some epidemical diseases are caused by fungoid exhalations of the nature of mildew and mould, and effluvia from putrified animal and vegetable matter carrying animalcular organisms, prone to enter the animal system by inhalation, and thus vitiate its blood and corrupt its flesh, afflicting whole communities, it will be remembered that these kinds of infections are never spread over so vast a surface in so short a time as it was in the case of the horse disease.
  From this view of the subject we may be allowed to inquire whether this peculiar malady may not owe its origin to a preternatural condition of the atmosphere, in which the very air itself is diseased, by the evolution and formation of a chemical compound acknowledge by science, but not analytically well enough understood to give it a definite character and value as to the noxious or unnoxious properties and habitudes. I refer to ozone.
  I would leave the consideration of the subject to abler heads, but for the fact that in my professional career I have frequently passed through fields on ozonized air in the clouds, and from this was lead to observe similar conditions of air on the surface of the earth, and hence will be pardoned for mentioning some observations upon such an occult question. I was acquainted with the peculiar smell and pungent dermical effects of ozone long before I knew it was such. The late Prof. Wetherill, of the Lehigh University, fifteen years ago, first drew my attention to it, on relating to him my experience in the clouds of a deposition of matter upon the moist skin which produced an effect like an acid, and which I supposed was the result of a condensation of an acid vapor in the gas of the balloon. He furnished me with starch iodides, and upon their test was verified its identity to that of ozone. It is not for me to question the chemical definition of ozone, but to inquire if it has any relation to the epizooty. Its name, ozone, meaning a smell, does not at all give the ordinary reader an idea of its substance.
  Ozone is termed "an allotropic condition of atmosphere"- more properly, ofits oxygen. That it is "a double portion of oxygen in the air." That it is "condensed oxygen in the air." That "it is the most acute condition of oxygen." In chemistry it is generated by burning phosphorus in water, and ozonizing the air over the water: and it is produced by electrolysis, and by passing electrical sparks through common air, &c. In nature it is produced by the evaporation of water, and is known to be more abundant along the sea-shore than far inland; and to its presence may be attributed the voracious appetite of persons who indulge in seaside gastronomy. The writer of this has experienced its effects always in approaching the upper surface of a bed of clouds, and when emerging into the sunshine its action upon the skin was of a pungently corrosive character, sometimes causing hoarseness, and always productive of a voracious appetite and a keen sensation of cold, although not a breath of air is felt while sailing along, ever so swift, with a balloon.
  While oxygen in its simple form has the property of vitalizing the annual functions, and of being the supporter of combustion, it is also known as a great destroyer, especially so by combustion, with its congener, electricity; and it becomes a question whether ozone is not really a compound of oxygen and electricity; at all events the two things are always manifest where oxygen is in an active state. It can reduce the diamond to a powder, and crumble the hardest metals into dust. 
  That peculiar conditions of the atmosphere changes of air, as we term them, have [[cut off]] do in the production and propagation of [[cut off]] is too well-known to admit of a doub and in what form and mode, is not known, hence it becomes a question of vation to all who choose to investigate, it falls legitimately within the sphere o- of the meteorological section of this Ins- [[Insight?]] seems to me worth the while to [[cut off]] whether epizooty is not the result of a w- ozonized air that was wafted along the slope of our continent. Certain it is, [[cut off]] spread, after it made its appearance on our eastern frontier, could be noted with as accuracy as is that of a storm by the [[cut off]] signal service.
   In support of this cause of epizooty call your attention to the peculiar and [[cut off]] character of the past summer, particular the case of thunder storms, and in the [[extraordinary]] exhibitions of aurora borealis. [[cut off]] -ant to these developments always follow general spread of colds and coughs and -braneous irritations as an epidemical inf-. Too much ozone for a normal vitality a- [[cut off]] -gestion was the inferential explanation. 
  Ozone will corrode the mucous [[membrane]] and to prove it, it is only necessary to [[cut off]] when it will always produce irritation, -ing and sneezing.
  Since it is known that ozone is formed [[cut off]] evaporation of water and cloud, it [[ cut off]] reasonable that it owes it evolution in -ral way to the action of the sun; and [[cut off]] modern science that we learn that the s- the sun have much to do with peculiar [[atmospheric]] phenomena on our earth, so that [[cut off]] not become a mere scientific speculation [[cut off]] ozone is the cause of epizooty. It cer- something that acts corrosively upon the [[mucous]] membrane of man and horse. [[cut off]] that the earlier influenza above mentioned the result of an ozonized atmosphere, a- the horse, with his less sensitive integ- fell a victim to it at a later period. S- -fections [[infections]] remain latent for a considera- [[considerable]] in man and brute, before they developed [[themselves]] as virulent maladies. 
  Cryptogramic and deatomous diseases spread so fast as did the epizooty. I- along more like the Asiatic cholera, a- not yet fully understood, and one, like e- only controllable by palliative methods.
  Looking to an abnormal condition of [[cut off]] in the ozonification of the atmosphere [[cut off]] cause for phenomenal diseases we m- to the fact that oxygen, forming one [[cut off]] whole bulk of the air, is not chemically [[cut off]] with the nitrogen composing the oth- fifths, and in this dilute condition it [[cut off]] for vitalizing animal organism. N- oxygen thus used, and another vast po- the oxydation of mineral and earthy [[cut off]] must be replaced. Nature must rest-[[restore]] releasing it from its solid and liquid form- half the mass of our planet is composed -gen in some form or another. This n- compensation in the release of oxygen passive forms to replace that which h- abstracted for use, is not exactly und-[[understood]] although incidental theories are noti-[[noticeably?]] main one that the vegetable kingdom [[cut off]] the carbonic acid thrown out by the [[cut off]] into the oxygen, and vice versa. T- [[cut off]] to meet the complete necessity, and ev- as an exact science of animal and vegetation [[respiration]].
  Now taking into consideration the [[cut off]] chemical processes in the order of natur- viewing the life of animals and veget- incidental to its profound operations, it -rational proposition, that our own planet be subjected to waves of ozone, spring [[cut off]] of the variable power of the sun up- earth, in its decomposing and reco- action.
  We feel that the compressed oxygen [[cut off]] -caissons of modern bridge building is [[cut off]] -tive to life, and a spark of fire in it is [[cut off]] to instantly inflame substances other [[cut off]] near so inflammable. In ozone the [[cut off]] still more active, and is ever in comp- electricity, a condition that renders it [[cut off]] of consuming anything that falls under [[cut off]] The ozonification of our atmosphere [[cut off]] liberation of one-tenth the passive o- the earth, would be sufficient to burn [[cut off]] whole world in a few days. 
  The atmosphere is our great breath- -dium. We cannot live without it a [[cut off]] and the moment it becomes contaminated breathing things must suffer. Temper- too much or too little moisture mak- -pressive and productive of chills and [[cut off]] Charged with deatomous matter it [[cut off]] inflammation of the mouth, nose and those subjected to its tides of such co- Impregnated with vegetable infusoria [[cut off]] -ductive of virulent types of disease. [[cut off]] oxygen in an allotropic cond ition it [[cut off]] an element of corrosion that even the membrane of the horse cannot resist partial decomposition.
  If epizooty were not primarily deri-[[derived?]] an abnormal condition of atmosphere, [[cut off]] not have swept so generally through t- family, disregarding all the know m- disinfection, cleanliness and prevent-[[preventative?]] generously instituted for its protection. 

Transcription Notes:
Text cut off, where not one letter decipherable is denoted [[cut off]] Text cut off, but one letter is decipherable is ex: -t or t-