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Lancaster Intelligencer.
TUESDAY, EVENING SEPT. 8, 1874.

SKYWARD, HO!
Navigating the Air--History of Ballooning--Ascensions Made in this City--The Trip to be Made To-morrow.

The cord is cut and I am off, 
No longer here below to dwell,
With meteor speed I'm borne aloft,
My earthly friends once more farewell.
-Old Song by James Mills,

The attempts of man to soar above the earth and penetrate on swift wing those boundless regions of the sky, through which human ken wanders without a limit, have not been confined to modern ages. That they have been of pre-historic origin is testified to by heathen mythology, which tells of Daedalus, the cunning artificer of Crete, who, having constructed the wooden cow for Pasiphae and the labyrinth of Cnossus, incurred the royal displeasure of Minos and was imprisoned. Being released by the Pasiphae, and at a loss for a vessel to escape from the island of Crete and the wrath of its rule, made for himself and son Icarus, wings of wax, with which he took his flight across the Aegean Sea to Sicily, where he founded the Temple of Apollo and dedicated to that divinity the wings which had saved him. The rash Icarus, however, flying too near the sun, his wings were melted from his body and he fell to the sea, which since has borne his name. This myth has been recalled to modern literature by Shakespeare:

Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete
That taught his son the office of a fowl;
And yet for all his wings the fool was drowned.

Mercury too, the swift-winged messenger of the gods, figure largely in heathen mythology and, though he depended upon no other means of locomotion than his winged feet, he claims an honored place among the aeronauts of antiquity, and his name has been applied, in honor of his speed, to the modern substance which in its inherent nature partakes of the quality which was his eminent characteristic.

Coming down, however, to later ages, we find that for centuries the efforts to the solution of the problem of aerial navigation. Well night twenty-three hundred years ago Archytas, of Tarentum, manufactured a wooden pigeon which sustained itself in the air for a few minutes; Simon Magus, of Rome, met his death in the reign of Nero, in an attempt to fly from one house to another; Bacon, one of the mightiest minds of an age in which there were intellectual giants, had a crude notion of a flying machine, and in the latter part of the 15th century, Dante, a mathematician of Perugia, rose above Lake Thrasimene by means of artificial wings attached to his body; not to speak of "Darius Green and his flying machine" as they have been immortalized by one of our own American humorists.

The science of aeronautics, however, took the first practical turn in 1766, when Cavendish discovered hydrogen gas, which was found to be fourteen times rarer than air and a vessel filled with which would rise. The honor of sending up the first balloon is conceded to Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, paper manufacturers at Anonay, near Lyons, who employed heated air to raise a balloon made of linen cloth, lined with paper. One June 5th, 1783, they put up a balloon weighing 500 pounds, which ascended to the altitude of a mile and gradually came down to the earth as the air escaped. This was the beginning of a long series of experiments, many of which were made with hydrogen gas and in some of which the daring aeronauts of this century was Green, the English ballloonist, who, in a professional career of thirty-sex years, made nearly 1,400 ascensions, crossing the sea three times and falling into it twice. in 1836 he made a trip from London to Weilburg, a distance of 500 miles, in 18 hours, and this was thought to have been a great feat; but in July, 1859, it was surpassed by our own aeronaut, John Wise, who, with La Mountain, passed from St. Louis, Mo., to Henderson, Jefferson county, N.Y., a distance of 1,150 miles, in 19 hours and 50 minutes. During the past twenty years the fever for ballooning has at times raged furiously and every town of any size in the country has witnessed ascensions. The experience of Mr. Wise, the great Graphic balloon enterprise of last year and its collapse, and the experiments of Donaldson, now making ascensions from the hippodrome, all are familiar to and fresh in the minds of our readers. Public interest in these experiments continues unabated and there is nothing which will attract a greater crowd than the announcement of a balloon ascension.

SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS.

For a time these ascensions were regarded simply as a novelties and experiments in the science of aerial navigation, but 1803 and ascension for strictly scientific purposes was made under the direction of the Russian Academy of Science, and, though and accident in 1805, to Carlo Brioschi, the royal astronomer of Naples, deterred scientists from this method of observation, it was revived in 1850, in Paris, by Messrs Bixio aud Bauel, and for the past twenty-four years the experience and observations of aeronauts have afforded most valuable contributions to the cause of science, and Mr. John Wise, who may fairly be regarded as the greatest aeronaut of the age, devotes all his time and the operations of his ascensions to the discovery of scientific facts.

BALLOONS AS MILITARY AGENTS.

Early in the history of aerostation the idea was conceived of making balloons effective as agents of warfare, and the science of ballooning was engrafted upon the course of military study in France. At a number of sieges, that of the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein among the number, they proved of value, and the battle of Fleurens was won in 1794, by Gen. Jourdan, mainly through information of the Austrian movements obtained by means of a balloon. In the Italian campaign of 1859 they were profitably employed by the French and then aided effectually in the victory of Solferino. An attempt was made to use them during the late war of the rebellion, but it was soon abandoned. During the siege of Paris, however, in the late Franco-Prussian ware, they were extensively and effectively used, and with great benefit to those shut up in the beleaguered city, and at presents the German governments in military ballooning, regarding them as useful agents of warfare.

ACCIDENTS RARE.

Notwithstanding the thousands of ascensions that have been made in balloons, very few accidents have ever occurred and as these have generally happened, through that carelessness or ignorance which may work a man's ruin in any situation, their examples have not deterred aeronauts. In 1785 occurred the first fatal accident, when two young Frenchmen attempted to cross the English Channel, when at an altitude of 3,000 feet, through carelessness the gas was set on fire and the balloon quickly consumed, they being dashed to pieces upon the rocks near the French coast. It is believed, however, that not more than 25 persons have ever lost their lives in experiments with balloons-figures that show a slight average of risk.

in view of the approaching ascension of Messrs. Wise and Johnston, from this city, these facts have been gathered together and hereto is appended a summary of the ascensions which have taken place in this city since Mills first ascended about forty years ago.

ASCENSIONS MADE IN LANCASTER.

The first ascension ever made in this city was made about the year 1832, by James Mills, an Englishman, who at that time had attained considerable reputation as an aeronaut. There are many persons living yet in our midst who distinctly remember this event, and the stanza at the head of this article was repeated from memory by an old citizen who says it was composed on that occasion by Mills.-On Saturday, May 30th, 1835, Mr. M. made another ascension from Lancaster, which was quite a success; he landed near Conowingo Furnace, in Drumore township, and returned to this city the same evening. Upon that occasion he also composed a farewell ode, which it may bot be inappropriate to reproduce on this occasion. It ran thus:

MR. JAMES MILLS' ADDRESS.

Farewell! Farewell! I cannot stay,
My charger pants to go;
I mount my steed and soar away,
And leave you all below.
Yon sun shall guide my course on high,
Far distant from your view;
And when he leaves the vaulted sky,
The stars shall light me through.

Farewell! Farewell1 I soar above,
To worlds more fair than this;
The deep blue sky that angels love,
Where joy and peace exist.
Colombia's banner now unfurled. 
Whose glory shining bright, 
I wave in triumph o'er the world,
The Freeman's heart delight.

Farewell! Farewell! My venturous car, 
Unguided now must sail,
Through ether’s ocean, vast and far,
Steered by the passing gale;
Must make its way through seas of light,
Bound to the upper skies;
To regions of the free and bright
Far, far from mortal's eye.

Farewell! Farewell! Yon golden sun, 
Retiring now to rest;
Shall light my slender vessel on,
'Ere sinking in the West.
The stars shall form my glittering crown, 
The clouds my canopy;
Then friends may smile and foes may frown,
But who can follow me.

Farewell! And O, let beauty's eye, 
With all its lustre born;
To guide me in my course on high,
And in a safe return.
And now I'm off-the tie is gone
That bound me still to you;
And I must wander all alone,
My earthly friends adieu.

Though Mills was a skillful aeronaut, and great crowds of people were drawn to witness his ascensions, it remained for Prof. Wise, more than any other man, to bring the science of aeronautics popularly before the world, and to demonstrate the safety and practicability of navigating the air. Of the hundreds of ascensions made by this intrepid and learned navigator, there was scarcely one, whether brilliant or otherwise, that did not add something to further the science he had so much at heart. A failure, that would have dampened the ardor, or ended the aeronautic career of a less determined man, only urged him on to renewed effort to ascertain the cause of the failure and to overcome it. It is not our purpose in this brief sketch to follow Prof. Wise through the hundreds of aerial voyages he has made, but merely to cursorily notice the ascensions made from this city and from a few neighboring places where the ascensions was of interest to our citizens.

The first ascension ever attempted by Prof. Wise was from Philadelphia, May 2d, 1835. Having started with an insufficiency of gas, his balloon went up slowly, grazed the roof of a house and descended in a vacant lot about four hundred yards from the starting point. Here more gas was forced into the bag and a fine ascension was made, the aeronaut attaining a height of a mile and a half, and landing safely at Haddonfield, N.J., nine miles from Philadelphia.

Prof. Wise's second attempt, from the same point in Philadelphia, was a failure, owing to the burning of the balloon by some sulphuric acid being spilled upon it.

His third ascension was from Lebanon, Pa., and was a most interesting one, the balloon having partly exploded when over Womelsdorf, but notwithstanding the accident, the aeronaut threw overboard his ballast and continues his flight to within four miles of Reading.

The first ascension made in this city by Prof. Wise took place from the corner of East King and Ann streets, on the 1st of October, 1836. The day was clear with a wind blowing from the northwest. The balloon, a heavy muslin one, was inflated, the aeronaut took a seat in the basket, and the word was given to "let her go." The gale that was blowing dashed the balloon against the side of the enclosure; the basket caught on the eaves of an adjoining house, the cords connecting it with the balloon were broken, and Mr. Wise was spilled out on top of the roof. The balloon continued its flight to great height, and was finally picked up near Bordentown, N.J.

Prof. Wise's next ascension from Lancaster was May 7th, 1936, in the fine new silk balloon "Meteor." The ascension was a very fine one, the aeronaut landing near Port Deposit, Md. After landing safely, after dark, the balloon was exploded and destroyed by some one who came too close to it with a lighted candle. Prof. Wise and several others were terribly burned by the ignited gas.

Transcription Notes:
there are some spelling errors that I left in as they are present in the original article