The first balloons

1. Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier lived in the eighteenth century in a little village in France where their father had a paper factory. The two brothers took paper bags from their father, filled them with smoke over a fire and watched them go up into the air.

2. After numerous experiments they were ready to show how their balloon worked. On the day of the flight people from different places came to the little village to see the spectacle. The brothers had constructed a bag some thirty feet in diameter. That big bag was held over a fire. When it was filled with hot smoke, it went high up into the air. It was in the air for ten minutes and then, as the air bag became cold, the balloon went slowly down.

3. The news about the experiment reaching the king, he wanted to see it himself. So on September 19, 1783 the King and Queen of France watched the Montgolfier brothers repeat their experiment. This time the balloon carried a cage with a sheep, a cock, and a duck who were thus the first air travellers. The flight was successful. The balloon came down some distance off with the sheep, the cock and the duck completely unharmed (невредимый).

4. If the animals could live through this, men could risk too. A month later a balloon was sent up with a Frenchman, Rozier by name. He stayed up in the air for twenty-five minutes at a height of about one hundred feet above the ground, and then came down, saying that he had greatly enjoyed the view (вид) of the country.

5. A month later he and Arlandes made the first free balloon flight. Their friends who came to say good-bye to them were very sad as the two men seemed to be going to certain death, but they went up several hundred feet, were carried by the wind over Paris, and came down in safety.

6. In 1785 a Frenchman and an American crossed the English Channel in a balloon. Having covered three quarters of the way the bal­loon began to go down. They threw everything they could overboard. They even undressed and threw away practically all their clothes. If they had not done it, they would have never reached the French coast safely.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11