CHANNEL BALLOONING.
DURING the past six years some of our more daring aëronauts have embarked in a succession of voyages from Dover and Hythe to France and Flushing, with the idea, it would seem, of rivalling the memorable trip made by Mr. C. Green in company with Messrs. Holland and Monck Mason, who journeyed from Vauxhall Gardens, in the year 1836, to the Duchy of Nassau.
A recent ascent by Mr. Morton, who is called the Birmingham Aëronaut, has had newspaper laudation, but aëronautically speaking, it does not surpass or equal Mr. Joseph Simmonds’ journeys in length and risky surroundings, nor General Brine’s, and Mr. Dale’s performance, nor the late Colonel Burnaby’s ascent from Dover, which extended beyond Dieppe, and was made in Mr. Thomas Wright’s balloon. Mr. Morton’s trip is not equal to the preceding, though unexpectedly good in its way.
The laboured efforts and fatal results of some of the later attempts to cross over do not raise the estimation in which ballooning is held. They would have been better left alone. Many of the mishaps, and they have been frequent, point to perils which the old masters neither saw or complained about, whereas our modern heroes ought to be more expert.
We have also lately had a touch or two of what may be correctly styled Bogus Ballooning. I refer to more than one report about a cross-Channel run, which never took place, as I have ascertained after ample enquiry. However I am well aware that the press cannot always escape this sort of imposition being practised upon reporters who are not proof against a hoax. I remember that when Henson’s flying machine was completed, a morning newspaper of high standing contained thrilling details of a first flight, which was merely a flight of fancy after all, as the ponderous mass never budged an inch.
In a later volume of my experiences I shall have to notice, on arriving at the proper date, the impediments and drawbacks to the advancement of ballooning.
It is known to those who admire and aim at promoting this subject that a few would-be inventors and so-called scientific men, who trade and traffic in this and other cognate arts actually retard instead of furthering aërostatics, they hold out false hopes, hoist false colours, and deceive the very elect, the result being that aërostation is at a stand still, or, in fact, loses caste to some extent.
Let us trust that these hints will lead to a new and brighter era, when military and meteorological ballooning will be further applied to useful objects, and that both combined, aided by sincere and competent abettors, will bring about the solution of aërial navigation.