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BALLOONING.
Professor Wise's Franklin Institute Voyage... What Mr. Cresson Says About It.
  Prof. John Wise's account of his balloon ascension from the Franklin Institute Exhibition building, and subsequent aerial voyage, was published in the BULLETIN of Saturday. 
  The following interesting letter from Mr. Charles C. Cresson, one fo the passengers' to Prof. Wise, is furnished for publication:
  PHILADELPHIA, 10 mo. 17, 1874.--JOHN WISE, No. 1951 North Eleventh street.--RESPECTED FRIEND: As it may be desirable to thee to have some account of my feelings in making the ascension with thee and Frank H. Taylor yesterday, I here note my reflections, premising that it ay have been exceptionally successful ascension, as it certainly was to me a very agreeable and instructive experience. I had dreaded feeling cold, but was agreeably disappointed, the thermometer at no time, if I recollect right, falling lower than 60 degrees at our highest altitude. 
  I had anticipated some sense of unbecoming nervousness, but happily for me was not troubled with anything of the kind, which was very much due, as I think, to the entire confidence that I felt in thy prudence and thy scientific and practical acquaintance with the whole process; and so far as danger is concerned, would not hesitate to take another trip with thee at any time.
  The only appearance of anything like danger was when the basket first struck the earth in its descent, but by following thy directions, to hold on to the upper hook, that danger was easily and safely passed through.
  The long, trailing rope hanging down below the balloon gradually sinks to, and rest upon the earth, as the balloon is thus gently relieved of its weight, it acts like a spring and reduces the force of the first bump to a minimum concussion.
  I noticed all through the trip - what is noticed by ever one- an entire absence of any sense of motion. There was not wind enough to raise a cobweb.
  As to wait I saw, it is impossible to describe it in words, so as to convey any intelligible idea. Prominent were the Delaware and Schuylkill, with their various creeks, winding along and losing themselves in the distance. Cooper's creek, which for a long time was just beneath us, with its windings, made a strong impression. The fields, whose differences of color hardly make an impression upon us as we walk across them, when seen from a mile high are brought out with remarkable distinctness and clearness, each one having its own special tint, and being bounded by precise lines, making the country look like a finely colored, engraved map. 
  The houses (especially steeple houses) and ships look like beautiful little toys. The lines of roads and streets stretching in various directions were easily recognizable at great distances. In a word, we had a miniature of our town and its surroundings, producing on the mind that peculiar effect that miniatures always seem to have, of bringing out beauties and leaving out defects. It seemed like looking at one of the large inland villages of Lilliput.
  What is the cause of this beautiful clearness as compared with an ordinary view of landscape? I believe it is due to the atmosphere. When we (being on the ground) look at distant things above we look through a dense atmosphere, loaded with moisture, with many different currents, near the ground, of different densities, which, according to a well-known laws of optics, deflect the rays of light as they pass from one density to another. This takes off from the definition of outline and alters the colors (and lowers the force of the colors), even at a mile off.
  But from a balloon we look though a less dense atmosphere, which alters the outline and color so much less (even at a mile off) as to be noticeable.
  These remarks apply to the landscape nearly under us and for a mile or two away-- which has a map-like clearness of outline and colors-- and to the city and its surroundings.
  I have tried to think out why it is that popular opinion concerning the danger of ballooning, is so exaggerated.
  I can only speak of my own experience, which is very small, and may have been exceptionally free of danger.
  I believe that one reason is, that there is often, with ballooning, a mixture of acrobatic display, associating ideas of danger which do not really belong to ballooning itself.
  Acrobats have, of course, an acrobatic temperament that makes them venturesome, thoughtless and incautious as to danger. Such men, trusting in their exceptional and cultivated bodily powers, can do, in entire safety, where ordinary persons would be in great danger. I would not be willing to make an ascent with such an aeronaut at any time of life. They are dangerous company for aged and pious people.
  But in ascending with thyself I felt such entire confidence in thy knowledge and prudence that the sense of danger did not at any time trouble my enjoyment. We ate mince pie at about one mile high- thanks to our friend Parkinson- Frank's tailoring proclivities manifesting themselves by cutting me off a handsome corner pattern, which I enjoyed, and ate from one of Parkinson's circulars, can't when threw the dirty plate overboard.
  Thee probably thinks that most of the gas out of thy balloon somehow found its way into this communication, and I will just hint I expect it to carry me (or I it) up to No. 1951 North Eleventh street this afternoon, where I hope thee may long live, enjoying thy well- earned reputation.
  Respectfully,
    CHARLES C. CRESSION,
      No. 1132 Girard street.
  Prof. Wise writes:
  Inasmuch as Mr. Cresson laid no restrictions upon the use of his letter, addressed with so much kindness to myself, but which, nevertheless, treats the balloon voyage with much original though, I deem it quite proper to hand it to your for publication without subtraction or addition, and just as it came, fresh from the mind of a gentleman belonging to a sect proverbial for integrity of thought and action, immediately after a ride through cloud- land. 
  He intimated to me that it was not written as fitted for publication, but that it might be of some us to me as an aeronautic document expressive of impressions made upon a novice in air- sailing. I think it is well fitted for publication, because, in social correspondence all restraint is ignored, and in that we get the true intent and feelings of the write. 
  I never before had with me a person that scrutinized aerial observations as closely as did Charles C. Cresson- even the shadow of the balloon, as cast upon the water, was first caught by his eye. The peculiarity of definition upon which he descants so correctly, as depicted in outlines of foliage, soil and color, upon the surface of the earth, as it strikes the eye of the astronaut, has ever been a theme of delight with the scientific observer. I noticed the outlines and colors of an extinct volcano I crossing the White Mountains, near Lake Winnepisseoge, with a balloon, 10,000 feet high at the time. In an ascent from Chilicothe, Ohio, I noticed the outlines in the soil beneath me of what seemed fortifications, although the fields were differently conditioned- some ploughed, some in stubble and some in grass- nevertheless, the outlines were as clear as lines on a map.
  I am in hopes of takes Charles C. Cresson up again- better provided for scientific observations than we were upon his first adventure.
  Respectfully your,
    JOHN WISE.

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VOL. XVII.-- NO. 87.
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FOURTH EDITION
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THE AIR-SHIP "FRANKLIN"
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A CRUISE IN THE AERIAL OCEAN
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The Voyage Which Prof. Wise Made from the Institute Roof.
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From our own correspondent.
  Balloon expeditions are becoming so frequent now-a-days that I need dwell but lightly upon the many and laborious preliminaries incident to the inflation, blasting, provisioning, and final getting away. On this occasion the point of departure was the commodious roof of the Franklin Insitute Exhibition building; the time, Friday afternoon (the 16th) at two o'clock, and the object, the obtaining of sketched, the diffusion of ballast, in the shape of circulars, and above all, the pleasure of a ride in a chariot, such as the monarchs of the Orient, in the wildest dreams or luxury, ne'er hit upon. 
  Having taken our seats and dropped over the side each of the careful packed sand bags, until not a pound of that commodity so dear to the grocer's heart, remained, the commander began to cast eyes of evil import toward the basket of solids and fluids kindly furnished by our friend Parkinson, and put up in a truly Parkinsonian style. For the first time, the writer, having partaken of no dinner, felt that alarm which is the sure forerunner of disaster, and the vain Flory and futility of things her below became vividly portrayed upon the imagination. But we never spared the sacrifice. The basket was save, and, Oh! Triumph! we arose, as one man, narrowly dodging the star spangled banner and staff from which it gracefully floated, rising at an angle of 60 degrees, until the shouts of the populace, none of which were hired for the occasion, but which were purely spontaneous, died away upon the listening ear, (the starboard ear.) 
  Then was unfolded to our delighted vision a scene of such grand proportions that the writer hesitates to enter upon its description. Oh! give me a new adjective, which shall be the quintescence of all that is lovely, that I may apply it, like a cap stone, to this hour of beauty, and save my ink! But no, it cannot be, and it but remains to speak of separate and detached portions of that which we looked down upon as a unit.
  For the moment gnawing hunger was forgot, and event the characteristic equanimity of the matter of fact Friend was dropped and he gazed lovingly upon the scene where the power and indifference of his upright sect have always found recognition, his face shown with human pride at the beauties of the Quaker city.
  On a former occasion of this kind, the writer's attention was so engrossed in lowering the drag rope, that half the beauties unfolded were lost to view by the swift transit, before a stiff breeze; not so now, no drop rope intreposed its material grossness to spoil the perfection of our etherial quiet, and as we lingered as though loth to go just above the lower line of clouds, we had ample time to study the living map upon the book of nature opened to our expection below. Mr Cresson remarked upon the preponderance of red tin roofs, and the tinsmith's calling rose many degrees in our estimation when we observed this convincing proof of his important function. We could still see the point from which we arose, it being prominent by the white clouds of steam, ever curling and wreothing upward, and just beyond the foundations for the public buildings, looking like a big architects' drawing on amber colored boards.