Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1811 Excerpt: ... trv is in all its beautv, and surelv vou must have had enough of that noisy smoky London. LETTER XXVII. EDWARD TO WILLIAM Haugrave.j Dear William, I Had the pleasure yesterday of seeing a sight which was perfectly new to me; and as a description of it may very probably be so to you, I shall make it the subject of a letter. It had been announced for some time past in our town, that a person was to ascend in an air-balloon from an adjoining field, some day this week, and preparations were made by the owner for accommodating a number of spectators. tors. But before I proceed, I shall tell you something about the nature of airballoons, as my papa was so good as to explain it to me before we went to see it. You know that every where above us is rilled with air, which is a transparent fluid like water, only a great deal lighter. And as in water every thing lighter than itself will rise up through it, so whatever is lighter than air will rise in it, till it comes to air still lighter than itself. Thus we see smoke ascend through the air till it all disappears. Now if smoke were cased in a ball of very fine paper, or silk, it would mount in the air till the smoke was grown cold, when it would become heavier and fall again; and this, my papa says, was the first notion of the inventor of balloons; one Montgolfier, a Frenchman, who contrived a great o 2 ball ball of silk into which fresh smoke was continually conveyed by a fire of wet straw burning beneath. But the chemists having found a kind of air much lighter than common air, it was thought better to fill the ball, or balloon, with this, as it would not want a fresh supply; or be in danger of taking fire. So the way is, to make a globe of some fine materials so large, that when filled with this very light air, the...
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