Oldalképek
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

'Kate," said I, hoarsely, "it is Vernon Grey;] he is here; he will soon recover, and Myra is dead."

I rushed to my own chamber, and wept over the memory of my lost love.

I will not linger over the relation of Vernon Grey's restoration to health, and how Kate and he again met. His marriage had been unhappy, as we before knew, for she who had lured his heart from Kate cared little for her prize; and the image of my gentle sister rose up before him in strong contrast to his gay and worldly wife. But peace to the memory of the dead, for I loved her once-oh, how well!

It is time that I should end this simple history. From the period of Kate's marriage I lived as I live now, in tranquil solitude. After forty, a man does not easily love again, nor is he likely to inspire love; he is too old for the young fresh hearts, and the worn and withered ones are too old for him. I do not say that this is invariably the case, for love is a perennial plant which can sometimes bloom as fair in life's autumn as in its spring. But with me it had already blossomed and faded; I did not love again. Yet, though now time's circles are narrowing around me, and I look towards the close of life, not as a distant prospect, but as a valley so near that my feet even now are entering its borders, I am not mournful.

Vernon Grey again wooed his first love-his only true one-for the second had been but a daz-I look back upon a long course, which, if a weary zling of the fancy. I scarcely thought him worthy of my noble sister; but then Kate had loved him once, and loved him still. She pleaded to me for him, spoke of his high principles, his affectionate heart; and while I smiled at her woman's trust and loving forgiveness, I bade her wed him and be happy.

one, has not been devoid of many pleasant restingplaces. My life has not been wasted; I have striven to work while it was yet day, remembering the coming night. If no wife or children brighten my fireside in my old age, I have at least other ties almost as dear. Dora's gay troop of boys and girls love me as well as children of my "I will not take your sister far away from you, own could have done, and Kate and her husband for you are more worthy of her than I," said Ver-share with me the calm enjoyments of a green old non Grey; and so he bought an estate near, that age. It is pleasant to think that, were death to Kate might see her brother every day. come, the old bachelor would be missed in more than one home, happy though it be. And come death soon, or come he late, I fear not. I am contented here; I have many sweet ties that I would not wish to leave, but I have more in the land where there is no parting.

Once again our neighbors saw a wedding go forth from Dr. Bernard Orgreve's doors. I have beheld younger and fairer brides than the one I now attended to the altar, but never did I look upon a face more beaming with chastened happiness than Kate's. Of what moment was it that a few white threads mingled with the dark hair, and that the hand which received the golden symbol, had shrunk a little from its round proportions? Kate was still fair, for she had the beauty given by a tender heart; a meek spirit, and that love which "beareth, hopeth, forgiveth all things."

From Graham's Magazine.
THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

WE sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port-

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town-
The lighthouse-the dismantled fort-

The wooden houses quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night
Descending filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a banished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives henceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again.
The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,

Attached to the manuscript which relates this History of a Household, is a sentence written in a formal lawyer's hand, a strong contrast to the old man's trembling characters, "Died, June 19th, 18-, Dr. Bernard Orgreve, aged 89. He was the last of the family."

And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which he spake

Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,

As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,

The flames would leap, and then expire.
And as their splendor flashed and failed,

We thought of wrecks upon the main—
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed,

And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames—
The ocean, roaring up the beach-
The gusty blast-the flickering flames-
All mingled vaguely in our speech,
Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the brain-
The long lost ventures of the heart,

That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin-

The drift-wood fire without that burned,

The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

From Fraser's Magazine.

A CHAPTER ON BALLOONS.

WE lately, during an exploration in a dark corner of our library, stumbled upon a curious old quarto volume, lettered "Balloon Prints," giving representations of all aeronautic excursions, from the first successful essay of ballooning until the art ceased to be the wonder of the age. Annexed to the prints are historical sketches of the different aërial voyages; and when we had gazed admiringly at the quaint and funny drawings, our imagination became inflated, and we soared into the belief that the cloud-dwelling editor of Fraser would give us a chapter in which we might fly a few balloons, with cars full of pleasant gossip, to our own credit and the amusement of the beholders, alias readers.

To make a chapter on ballooning heavy would be a paradox; and therefore, though we could be ponderously clever, and write learnedly on the science of aërostation, we modestly intend to keep our learning under dense atmospheric pressure, permitting but as little to ooze out as may be positively necessary to our purposes. For although a light subject in one sense, aërostation involves heavy and brain-torturing thoughts. When the intelligence reached St. Petersburg of the first ascent of a balloon, it found the venerable Euler in a state of great debility, worn out with years and unremitting intellectual toil. Though thus suffering-in fact, with the hand of death upon him-he applied his favorite mathematical analysis to determine the ascending motion of a balloon, and he had actually dictated the preliminary steps of the problem to one of his grandchildren, when exhausted nature compelled him to desist, and to compose his soul to soar to a nobler world.

The ambitious desire of man to penetrate the realms of space dates from great antiquity. The winged gods, and the stories of Abaris and Icarus, attest how fondly our predecessors clung to the belief that the advantages conferred on birds might be shared by man. Archytas, an eminent Greek geometer and astronomer, who perished by shipwreck on the coast of Calabria, was believed to have constructed an artificial dove, which, by the action of internal springs, wafted itself through the air; and Strabo tells us of the Capnobatæ, a Scythian people, who raised themselves by smoke, as the vulgar at first imagined Montgolfier did.

lectures on the possibility of flying, which are said to have convinced all hearers; and Bishop Wilkins, in his Mathematical Magic, (1680,) proposes an aërial carriage-indeed, the bishop felt so confident that the art of flying was on the high-road to perfection, that he declared it would soon be as common for a gentleman to call for his wings as for his boots.

The most noted scheme, however, for navigating the atmosphere was proposed by the Jesuit Francis Lana, in a book with the aspiring title of Prodromo dell' Arte Maestra, published at Brescia in 1670. His plan was to raise a vessel by means of metal balls, strong enough when exhausted to resist the pressure of the external air, but at the same time so thin as, under the same circumstances, to be lighter than their bulk of air. Lana never imagined that any physical objections could prevent the execution of his proposition. But what most alarmed the insinuating Jesuit, and which he earnestly prays God to avert, was the danger that would result from the successful practice of his art to all civil governments and human institutions; for, says he, "it is evident that no walls nor fortifications could then protect cities, which might be completely subdued or destroyed, without having the power to make any sort of resistance, by a mere handful of daring assailants, who should rain down fire and conflagration from the region of the clouds." Lana's project excited so much interest that it eventually awakened the attention of philosophers, who, in the persons of Hooke, Borelli, and Leibnitz, examined it minutely, and soon proved its utter impracticability.

66

The alchemists started another scheme for aërial navigation, which deserves passing mention from its astounding absurdity. Conceiving, with the ancients, that the dew which falls during the night is of celestial origin, and shed by the stars, it was imagined that this pure humidity was drawn up again to the heavens by the influence of the sun's rays. Father Laurus thus relates what he states to be an observed fact:-"Take," says he, very gravely, a goose-egg, and having filled it with dew gathered fresh in the morning, expose it to the sun during the hottest part of the day, and it will ascend." This ridiculous conceit was wittily exposed by Cyrano de Bergerac, in a philosophical romance entitled, The Cosmical History of the States and Kingdoms in the Sun and Moon, in which he describes a French traveller equipping himself for his lunar journey, by fastening round his body a multitude of very thin flasks filled with morning dew. The heat of the sun acting on the dew raised him to the middle region of the atmosphere, where some of his flasks happening unluckDuring the darkness of the middle ages, alche-ily to break, the adventurer fell to the ground. mists, and all those superstitious mystery men, It is a fact worthy of notice, that almost all the who, in the wild dreams engendered by their heated brains, imagined the resolving of impossibilities to tangible certainties, were reported to have attained the art of flying. Friar Bacon, in his work De Mirabili Potestate, writes confidently of a practical flying machine. Van Helmont and others gave

But the glowing visions of the East received a darker tinge from the character and climate of our Gothic ancestors. Dominion over the realms of the air was given to the arch-fiend, and by his power witches were supposed to traverse boundless space with the speed of thought.

persons during the middle ages who occupied their imaginations with flying dreams were priests. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, we are told that an Italian priest, who had been made Abbot of Tungland in Galloway by the Scottish sovereign, James IV., undertook to fly from the walls of Stir

The second passage is more diffuse, but less intelligible; and it is evident that Lord Bacon had no clear idea respecting aërial navigation beyond the conception of its possibility.

Dr. Black of Edinburgh, soon after the discovery of the specific gravity of inflammable air, conceived that if a bladder or bag, sufficiently light and thin, were filled with this air it would rise. This thought was suggested in his lectures of 1767 and 1768; and he proposed by means of the allantois of a calf to try the experiment, which, however, other avocations prevented him carrying into The possibility of constructing a vessel which, when filled with inflammable air, would ascend in the atmosphere, had occurred to Cavallo about the above period; and to him belongs the honor of having first made experiments on this subject in 1782, of which an account was read to the Royal Society on the 20th of June in that

ling Castle to France. Provided with a pair of | The further extension of this experiment might be ample wings, composed of various plumage, he had thought upon. the hardihood to try, but immediately came to the ground, and broke his thigh-bone by the violence of the fall. The reason given for his failure is characteristic of the sophistry of Jesuitism :-"My wings," said the artful Jesuit, "were composed of various feathers; among them were, unhappily, those of dunghill fowls, and they, by a certain sympathy, were attracted to the dunghill, whereas had my feathers been those of eagles alone, they would have been attracted to the region of the air." These attempts, although of the most abortive nature, were not long in giving birth to wonderful tales of objects seen rushing through the atmos-effect. phere. Dragons, of every size, shape, and hue, were described as having been seen in the heavens, vomiting forth flames, and widely scattering the seeds of pestilence. It was attempted to imitate these fiery monsters by means of a mass of reeds bound together and covered by skin, the whole being steeped in some inflammable composition, and set on fire when launched into the air; and it is on record that the inhabitants of villages were seized with horror and consternation at this device to impose on them. So late as the year 1750, a small Catholic town in Swabia was almost entirely burnt to ashes by an unsuccessful experiment, instigated by the lowest order of priests for the edification of their flock. It was determined to represent the effigy of Martin Luther, whom the monks firmly believed to be the imp of Satan, under the form of a winged serpent, furnished with all the requisite appendages of a forked tail and hideous claws. Unluckily for the skill of the projectors, the blazing phantom fell directly against the chimney of a house, to which it set fire, and the flames extending furiously in every direction soon spread desola

tion around.

year.

He first tried bladders, but the thinnest of them, however scraped and cleaned, were too heavy. In using paper, he found that the inflammable air passed through its pores like water through a sieve; and having failed in other attempts to enclose this air in a bag, he was under the necessity of being satisfied with soap bubbles inflated with inflammable air, which ascended rapidly in the atmosphere. These certainly are the first inflammable air balloons that were made; and it is not a little remakable, that Cavallo's experiments did not lead to the invention of the balloon.

The practice and science of aeronautics did not, however, in any way spring from the foregoing experiments; but, like many dazzling discoveries, owe their existence to individuals who, till the period of their invention, were utterly unknown to To Borelli is due the merit of being the first to fame. To the skill and perseverance of Joseph prove, by mechanical and mathematical principles, and Stephen Montgolfier, sons of a paper manufac the impossibility of rising, or even remaining susturer at Annonay, near Lyons, the world owes it pended in the air, by the action of any machinery that aërostation was practically brought into oper impelled by human force; and by degrees the fondation. These remarkable men, though bred in a hopes of being able to fly, which men of genius small provincial town, possessed in a high degree had entertained, began to fade away. Those who the spirit of research and observation. They were have since occupied themselves with such hopeless in the habit of trying all their experiments together, attempts have been more remarkable for excessive and it appeared to them that a sort of very thin presumption and conceit than for their philosophical acquirements.

It has been stated by some writers that Lord Bacon first published the true principles of aeronautics, but this is not the case; and there are only two passages in his works which can be considered as referring to aërial navigation, and they occur in that collection of inconclusive reasonings which he has entitled Natural History. The first is styled "Experiment touching Flying in the Air," and

runs thus:

Certainly many birds of good wing, as kites and the like, would bear up a good weight as they fly; and spreading feathers, thin and close, and in great breadth, will likewise bear up a great weight.

cloud, formed of vapor inclosed in a bag of immense size, would mount to the higher regions. This they tried by filling a bag made of paper and thin silk with hydrogen gas, but although the vessel ascended, it soon came down again, in conse quence of the very rapid escape of the gas through the pores of the silk and paper. This might have been prevented by the use of proper varnish, but such an application was at that time unknown. Thus disappointed, though not eventually discouraged, they tried various other means to attain the desired object, and at length substituting rarefied air for the gas, they had the inexpressible satisfaction to see a small silken bag so filled ascend to a height of seventy-five feet, where it remained

.

until the air, by cooling, lost its buoyancy. This 200 feet, for several minutes, by feeding the fire. experiment was made in November, 1782. It was But in this experiment the balloon was held capnow resolved to prosecute the experiment on a tive by cords. The success of the experiment larger scale. Having provided a vast quantity of determined M. Rozier to undertake a free aërial coarse linen, they formed it into the shape of a voyage. In this he was accompanied by the Marglobe, about thirty feet in diameter, which they quis d'Arlandes, a major of an infantry regiment, lined with paper. On lighting a fire within its whose valor seems, however, to have evaporated cavity, to warm and expand the air, the globe as in a very unmilitary manner. The ascent was cended with a force equivalent to about 500 lbs. made at La Muette, a royal palace in the Bois de On the 5th of June, 1783, the first public ex- Boulogne, in a balloon similar to that above dehibition was made by the Montgolfiers, at An- scribed. All being ready on the 21st of Novemnonay, before the Etats Particuliers of Vivarvis ber, 1783, the voyagers took their places in the and an immense concourse of people. On enter- gallery. After repairing some trifling damage ing the public place in the town, nothing was seen which the balloon sustained in a first essay, it at first but immense folds of paper, 110 feet in was, at fifty-four minutes past one, absolutely abancircumference, fixed to a frame, the whole weigh-doned to the dominion of the air, and soon ascended ing about 500 lbs., and containing 22,000 cubic with great rapidity. When the adventurers were feet. To the astonishment of all it was announced about 250 feet high, they waved their hats to the that this machine would be filled with gas and rise astonished multitude, and quickly rose to a height to the clouds. On the application of fire un-at which they could no longer be distinguished. derneath, the mass gradually unfolded, and as- The history of this voyage is that, in a great sumed the form of a large globe, striving at the measure, of the terror of the Marquis d'Arlandes. same time to burst from the arms that held it. On When he found himself so high that he could no a signal being given, the ropes which retained the longer distinguish objects upon earth, both his cuballoon were cut, and it instantly rose with an ac- riosity and ambition were amply satisfied, and he celerating motion, and attained an elevation of insisted upon his companion ceasing to throw straw more than a mile. All was enthusiastic admira- upon the fire, that they might descend. M. de tion; so memorable a feat lighted up the glow of Rozier, however, deaf to the marquis' remonnational vanity, and the two Montgolfiers were re-strances, continued his operations. At length, garded as having opened the road to another world. having attained an elevation of about 3,000 feet, An account of the ascent was transmitted to Paris, the marquis perceived some holes which had been and quickly circulated over Europe. The sensa-burnt in the lower part of the balloon, and at the tion that the intelligence created was immense; same time heard cracks which seemed to proceed yet the tale appeared so extraordinary as to cause from the top of the machine, and which appeared great doubts to be entertained of its veracity. In to him to menace its instant and entire destruction. England, particularly, men of science were un- He now became perfectly frantic with terror, and, willing to place any faith in what they regarded hastening to clap wet sponges to the burnt holes, as no better than an imposition. There were some, he vowed that if his companion did not immetoo, who would not allow that the invention could diately take the necessary steps to descend he be of the slightest utility. Franklin, however, is would throw him overboard; at the same time he reported to have said, in answer to the question promised faithfully to take upon himself the entire which was put to him on the discovery of aeros- blame of shortening their voyage. M. de Rozier tation, "What is its use?" "Of what use is the at length listened to the marquis' urgent solicitanewly-born infant?” tions; but on approaching the earth, the marquis, seeing the great danger that they incurred of being spitted on the weather-cock of the Invalides, hastily threw a fresh bundle of straw on the fire, and even spread it, in order to raise a fiercer blaze. This carried them over a great part of Paris at a sufficient elevation to clear the steeples, and passing the Boulevards, they landed safely in a field near Bicêtre, without having experienced the slightest physical inconvenience. The distance traversed was between six and seven miles, and they were in the air twenty-five minutes. The weight of the whole apparatus, including the two aeronauts, was between 1600 and 1700 lbs., and when they descended two thirds of their fuel were unconsumed.

The scientific men in Paris were not long in testing Montgolfiers' experiment. They succeeded admirably, and it was now determined to attempt a personal ascent. But before making the essay, three aërial voyagers were sent up in the form of a sheep, a cock, and a duck, all of which came down safely. Thus encouraged, preparations were made for an ascent. Montgolfier constructed a new balloon expressly for the purpose. It was of an elliptical form, 74 feet in height, 48 feet in diameter, and was elegantly painted and ornamented. A gallery was carried round the aperture at the bottom, communicating with a grate which enabled the aëronaut to supply the fire with fuel, and thus to keep up the machine as long as the fuel lasted. The weight of the balloon and its accompanying apparatus was estimated at about 1600 lbs. On the 15th of October, 1783, M. Pilatre de Rozier made an ascent in this machine, and contrived to keep it suspended in the air, at a height of about

Such was the prosperous issue of the first aërial voyage ever achieved by man. It was a conquest of science which all the world could understand; and it flattered extremely the vanity of that ingenious people, who enjoyed the honor of its triumph

in defiance of the doubts raised by English philos- | rapidity that the two unfortunate aëronauts were ophers. The Montgolfiers had the annual prize killed. of 600 livres adjudged to them by the Academy of Sciences; the elder brother was invited to court, decorated with the badge of St. Michael, and received a patent of nobility; and on Joseph a pension was bestowed, with a sum of 40,000 livres to enable him to prosecute his experiments with balloons.

In the meanwhile attempts were being made to elevate balloons by means of hydrogen gas; for it was found that heated air was highly inconvenient, on account of the serious difficulty of maintaining the elevated temperature of the enclosed air without continually renewing the fuel. This exposed Italian, in September, 1784. the aeronauts to much danger from the occasional sudden and unavoidable expansion of the flame, and their inability to command that uniformity of rarefaction so necessary to the safety of the voy

age.

This catastrophe led to the disuse of the complicated and dangerous system of inflammable and rarefied air balloons, and the adoption of the simple hydrogen gas balloon; the gas being generated by sulphuric acid, or common oil of vitriol being poured upon iron filings." The difficulties of aërial navigation being now surmounted, the ascents of balloons were multiplied in all quarters. Though several experiments on the ascensive power of balloons had been made in England during the course of the year after their discovery, the first aërial voyage was undertaken by Vincent Lunardi, an His balloon was thirty-three feet in diameter, and shaped like a pear. It was made of oiled silk, with alternate stripes of blue and red, having the car suspended from a loop below the balloon by forty-five cords. The greatest curiosity was manifested to witness his ascent. In the advertisement now before us, it is stated that the tickets for the first places were one guinea each, the others half-a-guinea. M. Lunardi departed from the Artillery ground at two o'clock, taking with him a dog, a cat, and a pigeon. After throwing out ballast to clear the houses, he ascended to a considerable height; and at a little after four descended near Ware, in Hertfordshire,

The first machine inflated by hydrogen gas was launched at Paris, by MM. Roberts and Charles, in 1783. Such, however, was the prejudice in favor of Montgolfiers' smoke balloons, as they were called, that, to pacify the populace who had assembled in vast numbers to witness the ascent of the gas balloon, Montgolfier was required to let off a small fire-balloon as a mark of his precedence. The ascent of the hydrogen gas balloon was per-after a pleasant voyage of two hours. fectly successful. "It mounted," says the reporter, "with a slow and solemn motion, allowing in its soft and measured ascent the spectators to follow with their eyes and their hearts two interesting men, who, like demigods, soared to the abode of the immortals to receive the reward of intellectual progress."

But the most daring and adventurous voyage in the early history of balloons, was that of M. Blanchard and Dr. Jeffries, across the Straits of Dover. This took place on the 7th January, 1785. The operation of filling the balloon was effected on the edge of Shakspeare's cliff. At one o'clock, the wind blowing very gently from the N.N.W., The inconvenience of never being able to ascend M. Blanchard ordered the car, which then stood or descend without the absolute loss of gas or bal-only two feet distant from the precipice, to be last, led to the employment of an internal balloon pushed off. As the balloon was hardly buoyant containing common air; by forcing air into the enough to support the voyagers, they were obliged latter, or drawing it out, the weight of the whole to throw out all their ballast, except three bags could be varied, and therefore it was thought that of sand of ten pounds each, when they rose gently it would ascend or descend accordingly. This but made little way, on account of the wind being scheme was put in practice by the Duc de Char- very slight. They had now a most beautiful prostres, but failing to answer, another method was pect of the south coast of England. After passing suggested, which was to place a small aërostatic over several vessels, they found themselves descendmachine with rarefied air under an inflammable ing; they immediately threw out a sack and a half air balloon, but at such a distance that the inflam- of their ballast, but this being insufficient to counmable air in the latter might be perfectly out of teract their descent, they threw out all that rereach of the fire employed for inflating the former; mained: even this, however, was found ineffectuand thus by increasing or diminishing the fire ap-al; they, therefore, next cast out a parcel of plied to the small machine, the absolute gravity books: thus lightened, the balloon ascended. of the whole mass might be considerably reduced or augmented.

At this time they were about midway between France and England. At a quarter past two, finding themselves again descending, they were compelled to throw out their provisions, instruments, anchors, and cords, and at last divested themselves of their clothes, and fastening their bodies to the cords of the balloon were prepared to cut away the boat or car, as their last resource. They had now, how

The scheme was unfortunately put in execution by the celebrated Pilatre de Rozier and M. Romaine. They ascended at Boulogne with the intention of crossing the channel to England, but the machine took fire at the height of nearly a mile from the ground. No explosion was heard; and the silk balloon seemed to oppose some resist-ever, the satisfaction to find that they were rising; ance to the descent for about a minute, after which, and as they passed over the high lands between however, it collapsed, and descended with such Cape Blanc and Paris, the balloon rose very fast,

« ElőzőTovább »