he had named the 'Aero-Montgolfiere.' There was a
rapid rise at first, and then for a time the balloon remained stationary
over the land, after which a cloud suddenly appeared round the balloon,
denoting that an explosion had taken place. Both Rozier and his
companion were killed in the fall, so that he, first to leave the earth
by balloon, was also first victim to the art of aerostation.

There followed, naturally, a lull in the enthusiasm with which
ballooning had been taken up, so far as France was concerned. In Italy,
however, Count Zambeccari took up hot-air ballooning, using a spirit
lamp to give him buoyancy, and on the first occasion when the balloon
car was set on fire Zambeccari let down his passenger by means of the
anchor rope, and managed to extinguish the fire while in the air. This
reduced the buoyancy of the balloon to such an extent that it fell
into the Adriatic and was totally wrecked, Zambeccari being rescued by
fishermen. He continued to experiment up to 1812, when he attempted to
ascend at Bologna; the spirit in his lamp was upset by the collision
of the car with a tree, and the car was again set on fire. Zambeccari
jumped from the car when it was over fifty feet above level ground, and
was killed. With him the Rozier type of balloon, combining the hydrogen
and hot air principles, disappeared; the combination was obviously too
dangerous to be practical.

The brothers Robert were first to note how the heat of the sun acted on
the gases within a balloon envelope, and it has since been ascertained
that sun rays will heat the gas in a balloon to as much as 80 degrees
Fahrenheit greater temperature than the surrounding atmosphere;
hydrogen, being less affected by change of temperature than coal gas, is
the most suitable filling element, and coal gas comes next as the medium
of buoyancy. This for the free and non-navigable balloon, though for the
airship, carrying means of combustion, and in military work liable to
ignition by explosives, the gas helium seems likely to replace hydrogen,
being non-combustible.

In spite of the development of the dirigible airship, there remains
work for the free, spherical type of balloon in the scientific field.
Blanchard's companion on the first Channel crossing by balloon, Dr
Jeffries, was the first balloonist to ascend for purely scientific
purposes; as early as 1784 he made an ascent to a height of 9,000 feet,
and observed a fall in temperature of from degrees--at