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Saturday at Baddeck 33
Pioneer Press. St Paul.
17 Mar 1907

By John Y. Alexander

SINCE the earliest days of the world's history, races of all kinds have had a strange attraction for man. The Romans had their chariot races and we know to our national sorrow that we have our horse races. But surely a balloon race must be regarded as an exception to Solomon's rule. It may be asserted with some confidence that never before had such an event taken place. Think of the audacity of the idea! A race through the clouds! Even the struggle for the America's cup lacks excitement when compared to that.
This great aerial contest took place at the beginning of October, 1900, and was regarded as the most remarkable feature of the Paris exposition. Many notable French aeronauts entered for the prizes that were offered, and the conditions of the race debarred all forms of aerostats other than the ordinary balloon from competing. Although the rules and regulations, with characteristic French volubility, filled fifty-eight pages of small type, the conditions were simplicity itself. There was to be no handicapping; each competitor was free to use a balloon of any shape or size, to carry as much ballast as he cared for, to avail himself of as many fads as he fancied and to make use of either hydrogen gas or the ordinary carbureted kind, according to the length of his purse. These conditions were liberal enough to produce the best and most interesting results. 
There had been a number of preliminary races of a trial nature, but the two principal events were fixed for Sept. 30 and Oct. 9. The former date was a Sunday, and on the Vincennes field many thousands of Parisians had turned out to enjoy the novel spectacle-novel even in that godless city of sensations. Scene was a curious one, touched at first with some degree of dullness, for there was nothing very exhilarating in watching a dozen shapeless masses of canvas and silk lying on the ground and slowly distending as the gas is introduced into them. 
But gradually, as the balloons begin to take shape before the eyes of the spectators, interest awakens, and the jaunty aeronauts who move about superintending their flimsy craft become objects of much curiosity. These are the men who are going to brave unknown dangers in the skies, and your Parisian is ever full of admiration for those who seem to be doing something suggestive of heroism. 
The baskets are now being attached to the swaying balloons; ballast, scientific instruments, food-no Frenchman is ever wanting there-are placed in the cars, and presently the dauntless competitors themselves are seen gracefully bestowing themselves inside the wickerwork, each as conscious of his dignity and his great role on the world's stage as if he were Napoleon himself. The aeronaut examines all the arrangements, counts his bags of ballast, is satisfied that all is well. The official judges, oozing importance and authority at every pore, are present. The moment for which the good humored crowd has waited so patiently is at hand. Workmen skilfully detach the sandbags which are weighting the balloon to earth, the mooring ropes are severed at a slash, and a mighty cheer bursts from the crowd as the first aerostat bounds upward into space, catches a breeze blowing northeast and speedily disappears from view dragging its tiny car beneath it.
It is the "Conte" that has just set off and two gentlemen who have waved a theatrical adieu as they mounted into the sky are civil employes of the Meudon university. Five minutes later the "Urania" shoots into the heavens. Capt. Vernanchet sits in his car, shaped like a boat and painted red. He has a burlesque steering apparatus in the bow and at the stern is an umbrella which he works violently as though he were sculling his boat over a celestial sea. Cheers and hilarious laughter greet the operations, for this is the gallant captain's little way of protesting against the decision to exclude the steerable balloons--so-called--from the competition.
The crowd is no in ecstasies of delight, for every five minutes another balloon pops up and is borne away in the northeast wind. The third to go is M. Jacques Faure," and his balloon is called the "Aero Club." The fourth is the famous "Centaure," in which the young Count de la Vauix has already established long distance records. As he rises now, bowing, cap in hand to the multitude, he is greeted with cries of "Vive la Russie!" Prophetic cries, for the northeast wind has caught him in its embrace and is hurrying him toward the kingdom of the tsar. See how the heavens favor the Franco-Russian alliance!
"Here is a veteran of more than thirty ascents during the last year and a half," said an expert as the Centaure arose in the air--"a fatigued and well worn veteran which has been ripped with wounds hastily patched up, made heavy by successive revarnishings and repairs. It is a balloon of medium size, having a disposable ballast of only 1,760 pounds. It is a cheap construction too, a simple cotton affair that costs scarcely more than the price of a voiturete, and yet it goes further, quicker and more certainly than its more costly rivals. Why, I do not know. Born under a lucky star, I suppose.
The fifth balloon to get away is the gigantic St Louis, the capacity of which is 3,000 cubic meters. Her captain is M. Jacques Balsan, another of the gilded youths of Paris who has found a new sensation in ballooning. He carries two passengers with him. In quick succession follow the remaining seven balloons, signalled by volley after volley of cheers. The boulevards hum that evening with talk of aeronautics. In materialistic Paris it is seldom that one hears so much about the heavens; rarely do the thoughts of the populace mount even as high as the Centaure.
Next afternoon excitement is renewed as the telegrams come in telling of the fortunes which have attended the various competitors. Two have landed in Hoiland, one has come down in Westphalia, four have not got out of France and the humorous Vernanchet only got a little way out from Paris. One had arrived on the edge of the Baltic after a voyage of 496 miles, lasting fourteen hours. But this was nothing. The Centaure had done that and better already. Nor did M. Faure accomplish a wonder by traveling to Mamlitz, in Eastern Prussia, 753 miles away.
But there still remained the Centaure and the St Louis to account for. And soon the news came that the former had descended near Wlocaweck, in Russia Poland. having made the journey of 786 miles in twenty-one hours and thirty-four minutes, while M. Balsan's balloon had come down in Eastern Prussia, near Dantzig, 757 miles away, in twenty-two hours. Count de la Vaulx was the winner, with Balsan second, and Paris went made with joy over the first balloon voyage into the country of France's "ally."
"I could have gone some distance further," said De La Vaulx himself on his return to Paris a few days later. "as I had on hand more than 200 pounds of ballast. But I was afraid of getting so far into the interior of Russia, away from the railways and telegraphs, that I could not get back in time for the next race. So I decided to land. It was well that I did. Though they had the telegraph at hand, they kept me in jail for twenty-four hours rill my case could be officially investigated."
The opening of the aerial route "from France to Russia," as the Parisian press put it, created immense excitement among a people who are easily excited, and the final balloon race on Oct. 9 was a scene of even more remarkable enthusiasm than that which we just described. There were six competitors. The Count de la Vaulx was the only one that used the expensive hydrogen for inflation, and he was accompanied on this occasion by the Count de Castillon. But the hydrogen generator did not work effectively, and after some hours of effort he was fain to pay out with ordinary gas.
The results of the final race left the two who were first in the previous race again in the same relative positions. Here is the official record of the event:
First - M. le Comte Henri de La Vaulx, descending, after thirty-five hours and forty-five minutes of voyage at Korosticheff, in Russia, after twenty-seven hours and twenty-severn minutes of voyage, traveled a bird's flight distance of 1,360 kilometers (845 miles) from the point of departure. Maximum altitude, 6,540 meters (21,582 feet).
The other contestants had made distances varying from 550 to 950 kilometers. Count de La Valux was naturally the hero of the hour in Paris, for had he not broken all aeronautical records both for length of journey and duration of voyage, and landed twice within a fortnight in Russia, and was he not a Parisian?
Mr. Walter Wellman has been able to publish some interesting extracts from the log book of Centaure. "After day has fully come," a note says, "we are in a mountainous country, Bavaria, without ballast." The entry ended with a mark of interrogation, nevertheless. "This." said De La Voulx, descanting upon the joys of ballooning, "is the charm of the whole thing. The balloonist becomes an explorer. Say you are a young man who would like to roam a little, you would like adventures, you want to penetrate the unknown, but you are tied down at home by family, business, what not. Well, you take to ballooning. At noon, you have luncheon with your family, and at 2 o'clock you ascend. Fifteen minutes later you are no longer a commonplace denizen of the easy-going town; you are an adventurer into the unknown, an explorer as surely as any who meit in Africa or freeze in the Arctic. You do not know any too well where you are at any given moment and as for knowing where you are going or when you are going to get there, why, that is all a guess. See how amusing it may be! It is principally chance and the winds. Yet you have something to say about it too-something depends upon you, your skill, your nerve, your wisdom, your experience. Then, when you decide to come down it is really jolly to speculate upon what country it may chance to be.
This mad race through the clouds continued all day. The two ships of air were flying neck and neck over Southern Germany and Bohemia. In the early morning the rivals began a series of competitive maneuvers-the yachtsmanship of the atmospheric ocean. When the Centaure threw out the ballast and rose above the mist of clouds the St Louis followed suit. When the Centaure let out a little gas and descended nearer the earth, the St Louis lost no time in executing a similar movement. So near together were the races at one moment that De La Vaulx and Goddard in their repective balloons were able to make out the identity of their competitor. At 9 o'clock they passed over a large city, but they could not get its name. In an hour they passed another town, also a wide river, and still they did not know where they were.
"Dalsan is always mounting," says the Centaure's log book. "He has passed in front of us and is working more toward the south. This continual mounting," it is recorded with evident satisfaction, "will doubtless shorten his trip."
At 2 o'clock in the afternoon the sun was clouded over, and the balloon suffered such a great condensation that they were compelled to throw out several sacks of ballast, and even at that they fell near enough to earth to have a good view of a large city which they thought was Posen.
"our rival has disappeared," notes the log book of the Centaure with an air of triumph and finality.

Transcription Notes:
Most question marks signify where the text is cut off--if only AGB had been more precise with his cuttings