in danger of frost-bite. Indeed, one of the animals
suffered so severely from the effects of the cold that Lunardi skilfully
descended low enough to drop it safely to earth, and then, throwing
out ballast, once more ascended. He eventually came to earth near a
Hertfordshire village about 30 miles to the north of London.

CHAPTER V. The Father of British Aeronauts

No account of the early history of English aeronautics could possibly be
complete unless it included a description of the Nassau balloon, which
was inflated by coal-gas, from the suggestion of Mr. Charles Green, who
was one of Britain's most famous aeronauts. Because of his institution
of the modern method of using coal-gas in a balloon, Mr. Green is
generally spoken of as the Father of British Aeronautics. During the
close of the eighteenth and the opening years of the nineteenth century
there had been numerous ascents in Charlier balloons, both in Britain
and on the Continent. It had already been discovered that hydrogen gas
was highly dangerous and also expensive, and Mr. Green proposed to try
the experiment of inflating a balloon with ordinary coal-gas, which had
now become fairly common in most large towns, and was much less costly
than hydrogen.

Critics of the new scheme assured the promoters that coal-gas would be
of little use for a balloon, averring that it had comparatively little
lifting power, and aeronauts could never expect to rise to any great
altitude in such a balloon. But Green firmly believed that his theory
was practical, and he put it to the test. The initial experiments
quite convinced him that he was right. Under his superintendence a fine
balloon about 80 feet high, built of silk, was made in South London, and
the car was constructed to hold from fifteen to twenty passengers.
When the craft was completed it was proposed to send it to Paris for
exhibition purposes, and the inventor, with two friends, Messrs. Holland
and Mason, decided to take it over the Channel by air. It is said that
provisions were taken in sufficient quantities to last a fortnight, and
over a ton of ballast was shipped.

The journey commenced in November, 1836, late in the afternoon, as
the aeronauts had planned to cross the sea by night. A fairly strong
north-west wind quickly bore them to the coast, and in less than an hour
they found themselves over the lights of Calais. On and on they went,
now and then entirely lost to Earth through being enveloped in