Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1891 — Shall We Travel in Balloons? [ARTICLE]

Shall We Travel in Balloons?

The belief in the possibility of sue cessful aerial navigation still retains its hold on the minds of many intelligent men. A French scientist now proposes to make a scientific expedition to the north pole. He proposes to construct a balloon of lined silk, 30 meters in diameter and having a cubic capacity of 14,121 meters. The balloon will be covered with a special varnish which will insure its absolute ’imperviousness. It will be filled witty pure hydrogen, and its car will be constructed on a novel plan especially suitable for a polar expedition. It is calculated that the aerial voyage will last four or five days. It is proposed to start from Spitsbergen, and it is hoped that it will end. on the North American continent or in the northern part of Asia. This is by far the most important journey which has yet been attempted in a balloon and, if successful, it will teach many lessons not only in aerial ; navigation but also in many departments of physical science. Experiments are being made in another department of air traveling by Lawrence Hargrave, in Sydney, N. S. W. Mr. Hargrave holds to the feasibility of a flying machine in which screw propellers or flapping wings are used, and in his latest attempts he used as prime mover a Brotherhood engine driven by compressed air, which was found to give a trustworthy source of power. These ex-, periments have raised a doubt as to whether the balloon is even a step, in the right, direction of solving the aerial problem. They,, at all events, have demonstrated from the facts they have brought out as the flight of birds that we stltrhdvtf a great deal to-learn <as to life, and their further ihvc&tTg’at’iob opens up a wide field alike to the The twenty-ninth international con ven<ipn of Young. Men s Christian ‘As.sdi-iatidrtifhfcets its ; <ansaa GiV»; Moi, May G-10.