ning a huge rent in the envelope,
because of the expansion of the gas at that height, returned to
earth in safety. The fever ran from France to England and in 1784,
only a year after the first Montgolfier experiments, Lunardi, an
Italian aeronaut made an ascension from London which was viewed by
King George III. and his ministers, among them William Pitt. But the
early enthusiasm for ballooning quickly died down to mere curiosity.
It became apparent to all that merely to rise into the air, there to
be the helpless plaything of the wind, was but a useless and futile
accomplishment. Pleasure seekers and mountebanks used balloons for
their own purposes, but serious experimenters at once saw that if
the invention of the balloon was to be of the slightest practical
value some method must be devised for controlling and directing its
flight. To this end some of the brightest intellects of the world
directed their efforts, but it is hardly overstating the case to say
that more than a century passed without any considerable progress
toward the development of a dirigible balloon.

[Illustration: Charles's Balloon.]

But even at the earlier time it was evident enough that the Quaker
philosopher, from the American Colonies, not yet the United States,
whose shrewd and inquiring disposition made him intellectually one
of the foremost figures of his day, foresaw clearly the great
possibilities of this new invention. In letters to Sir Joseph Banks,
then President of the Royal Society of London, Franklin gave a
lively account of the first three ascensions, together with some
comments, at once suggestive and humorous, which are worth quoting:

Some think [he wrote of the balloon] Progressive Motion on the
Earth may be advanc'd by it, and that a Running Footman or a
Horse slung and suspended under such a Globe so as to have no
more of Weight pressing the Earth with their Feet than Perhaps
8 or 10 Pounds, might with a fair Wind run in a straight Line
across Countries as fast as that Wind, and over Hedges, Ditches
and even Waters. It has been even fancied that in time People
will keep such Globes anchored in the Air to which by Pullies
they may draw up Game to be preserved in the Cool and Water to
be frozen when Ice is wanted. And that to get Money it will be
contriv'd, by running them up in an Elbow Chair a Mile high for
a guinea, etc., etc.

With his New England lineage Fran