ved
By the Powers of Chemistry
And the Fortitude of Man
That Improvement in Science
Which
The Great Author of all Knowledge
Patronyzing by His Providence
The Invention of Mankind
Hath graciously permitted
To Their Benefit
And
His own Eternal Glory.

CHAPTER IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY.

In less than two years not only had the science of ballooning reached
almost its highest development, but the balloon itself, as an aerostatic
machine, had been brought to a state of perfection which has been but
little improved upon up to the present hour. Better or cheaper methods
of inflation were yet to be discovered, lighter and more suitable
material remained to be manufactured; but the navigation of the air,
which hitherto through all time had been beyond man's grasp, had been
attained, as it were, at a bound, and at the hands of many different
and independent experimentalists was being pursued with almost the same
degree of success and safety as to-day.

Nor was this all. There was yet another triumph of the aeronautical
art which, within the same brief period, had been to all intents and
purposes achieved, even if it had not been brought to the same state of
perfection as at the present hour. This was the Parachute. This fact
is one which for a sufficient reason is not generally known. It is very
commonly supposed that the parachute, in anything like its present form,
is a very modern device, and that the art of successfully using it had
not been introduced to the world even so lately as thirty years ago.
Thus, we find it stated in works of that date dealing with the subject
that disastrous consequences almost necessarily attended the use of the
parachute, "the defects of which had been attempted to be remedied
in various ways, but up to this time without success." A more correct
statement, however, would have been that the art of constructing and
using a practicable parachute had through many years been lost or
forgotten. In actual fact, it had been adopted with every assurance of
complete success by the year 1785, when Blanchard by its means lowered
dogs and other animals with safety from a balloon. A few years later he
descended himself in a like apparatus from Basle, meeting, however, with
the misadventure of a broken leg.

But we must go much further back for the actual conception of the
parachute, which, we might suppose, may originally ha