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[[start left-hand column]] [[start clipping 1 of 4]] Account of Mr. Lunardi's Aerial Voyage, on Wednesday, September 15, 1784. Mr. Lunardi having been disappointed of the use of the gardens at Chelsea Hospital, had for some time announced to the Public his intention of ascending from the Artillery Ground, in his Aerostatic Machine. Accordingly, on the day appointed, a vast concourse of people, supposed to be upwards of 150,000, were assembled in Moor-fields, and all the adjacent places; and temporary scaffolds were erected in Bunhill Row and the City Road; but we are sorry to add, that the appearance of company in the Artillery Ground, did not bespeak much attention to the emolument of the ingenious and enterprising foreigner ; and we understand, that, exclusive of the necessary expenses attending the preparations for filling the Balloon, his receipts at the Lyceum and at the Artillery Ground were subject to some considerable defalcations. [[end clipping]] [[start clipping 2 of 4]] Mr. Lunardi's conduct yesterday discovered the utmost degree of intrepidity, and a noble spirit of adventure that cannot be sufficiently applauded. If this enterprising foreigner had been at all fearful of making the hazardous experiment, he might have preserved his reputation, and have descended in safety just after the Balloon was launched; when after rising to about the height of an house, it rapidly lowered and appeared as if it would touch the ground: instead however of taking the advantage of what would universally have been deemed a defect in the filling to secure himself, with a careless activity that displayed a zeal only for the honour of the Balloon, and an utter indifference to his personal safety, he exerted himself to remove the ballast, in order to overcome the pressure of the external air, and proudly soared into the unknown regions of the sky, with all the calmness of the philosopher, and the resolution of an hero. The immense multitude who attended this sublime spectacle, conducted themselves with the most respectful decorum, and manifested an enthusiasm in his favour, and a solicitude for his safety, that do honour to the character of Englishmen. One cannot but lament that Mr. Biggen, who eagerly panted to share with this spirited foreigner the aerial honours, should have been disappointed upon this occasion, as his zeal for science, and ardour of enterprize, would doubtless have emulated the noble fortitude of Mr. Lunardi, and their mutual observations would probably have furnished a more ample description of this courageous expedition; but as the Balloon would absolutely raise only one person, Mr. Biggen was of necessity prevented from indulging his inclination and scientific curiosity. ^[[17 Sept, 1784.- handwritten in ink]] [[end clipping]] [[start clipping 3 of 4]] The place where Mr. Lunardi descended was a kind of inclosure ; he passed very nearly over several hedge-rows full of trees, and in the last field very narrowly escaped a rugged stump of a tree, which might have done him great mischief, as the balloon was unmanageable: it rebounded several times from the earth with great force and broke the gallery, beside bending the trumpet. ^[[Sept. 20, 1784 - handwritten in ink]] Mr. Lunardi is a young gentleman of good family at Naples : being a younger son, he had little more to encounter the world with, than a very liberal education, a good person, and an enlightened mind. He was sent in the early part of his life to the East Indies, where he remained some time without benefiting from the plunder practised in the East. On his return, being of an enterprising and philosophical turn of mind, he was selected from his countrymen as Second Secretary to Prince Carrimanico, the Neapolitan Amassador. Some time after their arrival in England, the Prince honoured Mr. Lunardi with his confidence and appointment, as principal Secretary to the Embassy; in which capacity he remained until the Prince was recalled to his appointment at a different Court. The separation was reluctantly complied with, but could not be prevented without a violation of that honour which Mr. Lunardi had ever supported. Having fixed his mind on the aerial excursion, and pledged his faith to the public, in London, for the performance, he resisted the impulse of friendship and interest. The mortification which evidently struck Mr. Biggin in descending from the machine, after a rise of five foot, was so great, that his subsequent calm, and steady coolness, in assisting his friend and anxiety for his safety, was the subject of general admiration at the time, and of subsequent conversation. The collected magnanimity of his conduct shewed signs of the most spirited generosity. The Prince complimented Mr. B. on on this resolution, and he replied with the true elegance of classic knowledge, that Scipio was more celebrated for his continence, than Hannibal for all his virtues. It is to be regretted, that this failure has occasioned the loss of that gentleman's observations. [[end clipping]] [[start clipping 4 of 4]] The folly-balloon received its coup-de-grace yesterday, and gave up the ghost in a blaze, between four and five o'clock in the evening. A great number of people were admitted into the gardens, and it was highly diverting to see some with long, others with grinning faces leave the ground, each bearing some relicks of the balloon defunct. Sic transit gloria mundi. Advertisement Extraordinary. - To be sold cheap, several Pairs of fine, well-fed Pidgeons, an Owl, Dog and Cat, that were intended for the aerial voyage of Mess. Folly, and Co. also a couple of speaking Trumpets. Enquire this day and tomorrow, at the Fool's Cap, Little wit-row, near Humbug Street, Cavendish-square. Mr. Lunardi's dog and cat, are no bad emblems of our modern gentlemen who make the grand tour; they ride and sleep, and return with the same stock of ideas with which they set out, if they are externally transmogrified, it is usually for the worse! ^[[Sept 1784 - handwritten in ink]] [[end clipping]] [[start page right]] FOR SEPTEMBER, 1784. 361 Of the BALLOON, as it appeared at the Lyceum, and was originally intended to be sent up, this Cut is an exact representation. [[image - black and white illustration - hot air balloon in flight with wings, oars, anchors and one passenger]] It was a perfect Sphere or Globe, about 33 feet in diameter, and 102 feet in circumference, and was to contain 18,200 cubit feet of inflammable air. It was covered entirely with oiled silk, the stripes alternately red and green. Below the Balloon was to be fixed one pair of wings, raised high, and moving horizontally, by means of a wheel with pinions, in order to increase the motion it might receive from the wind. In the gallery, not only Mr. Lunardi, but another gentleman, Mr. George Biggin, was to have ascended; and below the wings our aerial navigators were to have made use of a pair of oars, which were to move vertically, and which were intended to raise or depress the Balloon at their pleasure. - But some unexpected circumstances defeated this arrangement: Mr. Biggin was unavoidably left behind; the wings were laid aside; and although Mr. Lunardi ascended with both his oars, he dropped one of them before he had attained any considerable height. - It is certain, (to whatever cause it might be owing) that at the time announced for the departure of the Balloon, it was not sufficiently filled with the inflammable air to render it practicable to carry the intended weight, as four hours more would have been requisite to fill it properly. The lower part of the Balloon, in course, was flaccid; and, instead of being an exact sphere, as at the Lyceum, it had more the appearance of a pear, with its stalk downwards. Mr. Biggin had actually taken his seat with Mr. Lunardi, in the gallery, which was X [end page] [start clipping 1 of 3] THE LONDON CHRONICLE for 1784. [[end clipping]] [[start clipping 2 of 3]] To the PRINTER of the LONDON CHRONICLE. SIR, ^[[Oct. 9 1784 - handwritten in ink]] The writer of the paragraph containing a natural reflection on the experiments with air [[underlined]]balloons [[/underlined]], cannot submit to the severe animadversions a Correspondent in your last, p. 343. has made on it, as proceeding from an ignorant enemy to the acquisition of useful knowledge. I will not undertake to justify the objections of the old ladies, but admit that he has refuted them much more satisfactorily on paper, than I am persuaded it would be in his power to do if he was beset by three or four matrons at a tea-table. The reflections that dictated the offensive paragraph were simply these. A large subscription is required, with long time and much attention, to prepare a balloon with all its apparatus, subject to various accidents, for the experiment of a few hours. When I heard that Mr. Lunardi had landed near Ware, I expected that the balloon, when eased of its load, would still have been buoyant enough to have carried itself; and that it would have been brought to town tied by a cord over a waggon or stage-coach, and have arrived at least half full of this extravagantly dear air, to have been replenished for farther attempts. But though this fluid may be of a permanent nature itself, it is scarcely to be expected that any material whatever can be made use of to contain so vast a body of it, sufficiently free from pores to retain it for any duration, and at the same time so light as to give us the advantage we wish to enjoy from the levity of the inflammable air. But we see three or four hundred pounds all evaporate in three or four hours! And a hundred pounds an hour is too dear, even for the pocket of a Prince to support, for a repetition of experiments necessary to be matured into knowledge. Hence, by raising large sums, we are exposed to be duped by balloon adventurers, or must make a Bartholomew-fair exhibition of an ingenious man, associated with a cat and a dog, for his indemnification: which is a most mortifying degradation in liberal undertakings! But cui bono, is the question that has given offence. I am sorry for it; but instead of withdrawing it, I must repeat it. Even if we had acquired the art of navigating a balloon in the air as perfectly as a [[end clipping]] [[start clipping 3 of 4]] ship in the ocean, the application cannot be very extensive, if every balloon is to cost four or five hundred pounds; and is, when perfected, of so transitory an existence! The fire balloon seems to promise the most in point of facility, when once a regular use is found for balloons; and yet a furnace is neither a safe nor a convenient attendant in such excursions; and must, in many points, contract the uses to which balloons might be applicable. If indeed balloons could be regularly sent to the mouth of a coal pit, be filled with inflammable air gratis, and then be conveyed to the various places where they might be wanted, without loss of the contents; nothing would remain but to study the management of them: but even then, a difficulty little adverted to, stares us in the face. A ship swims in one medium, and is impelled by another; but a balloon floats in the same medium that we wish to apply to move it in the direction we want. The instance of a fish will scarcely be produced to shew the practicability of effecting this purpose, until the mechanism of human art can be proved equal to that of nature; concerning which I have some little doubt. If we could attain the complete government of a balloon in a dead calm stagnated air, I should deem it no small acquisition, and yet of no great use: because the application must then be confined to a state of the atmosphere not always to be found, or to be depended on. While so great a body as a balloon is strongly impelled by the wind in one direction, I own it appears to be an arduous undertaking to stem this force by any little exertions below, so as to give it another direction. But though your Correspondent may probably retort, that he cannot help the dimness of my fight, or the shallowness of my conceptions; I assure him, that even himself would not rejoice more sincerely or cordially at such a grand discovery than I should. I only regret, that the experiments cannot be made at a rate that will allow a sufficiency of them for the improvements we desire. On this principle I shall not be sorry if he should be able to prove all I have now written to be as weak as the old women's objections he has so ingeniously exerted himself to refute in his letter, CUI BONO? [[end clipping]] [[end page]] ^[[61 - handwritten in pencil at bottom of page]]