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Have you any of the details of the voyage of Mr Livingston with Miss Thompson in 1817, or of the ascent of Reichard with P. Muskan? The ascent of Lumordis’ servant from Chester is in Monck Mason’s work.
If you were to send the plan of you parachute to the editor of the Mechanic’s Magazine, I dare say he would give it in the magazine. You state that you intend to send me a list of accents. I should be glad to see anything relating to Aerostation. Do you think that the problem of directing balloons is solved by the plan of warping?
I perceive, by comparing my list with yours, that I have some ascents which are not in your list. I will send a statement of them to you if you wish. I believe that Madame Arban made an ascent as well as her husband, have you any account of a voyage by her.
From Joseph MacSweeny Esq. M. D, Cork, September 13, 1847.
I am glad to be able to send you the names of some aeronauts to add to your list. Richard Crosbie ascended from Limerick on the 27th of April 1786. He descended in the County Clare, at a place about 14 miles from Limerick. Mr Sadler Jnr ascended from Cork on the 2nd of September 1816, and descended near Carrigaline, about six miles from Cork. Mr William Bain ascended with Mr Hampton from Dublin on the 9th of September 1846, and on the 15th of the same month Mr Cooke and Mr Walker ascended with him from Dublin. Mr Henry Vereker, Mr Stephen Keays, and W. J. Miller ascended with Mr Hampton from Limerick on the 5th of October 1846, they descended near Limerick. Capt. Maddocks, 13th Light dragoons, and Capt. Morris, 17th Lancers ascended with Hampton from Dublin on the 25th of August 1847. Capt. Forde, of the 4th Light Dragoons, ascended with him from Dublin on the 6th of September 1847.
For my next communication I shall have for you additional information relating to some English and foreign aeronauts. In all the above voyages from Dublin the descents were made within a few miles of Dublin.
The ascent of Mr Green from Weymouth should have been noted. It was an error of the press which was not noticed until it was too late to have it corrected. Richard Crosbie, who ascended from Limerick, was the same person who made the first ascent in Ireland in 1785.2
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From Joseph MacSweeny Esq. M. D, Cork, October 8, 1847.
I received you letter containing the card and extracts from papers. I had previously received the list of ascents, for all which I have to return thanks. The Earl of Munster ascended from London in 1845 with Mr Green. I have mislaid the note I took at the time, but I think that the ascent was in August 1845. Garnerin made a night ascent from Paris on the 16th of August 1808. He landed on the following morning at Broussig in the Department of Mense, 280 miles from Paris. A man came to his assistance, but the wind being strong the balloon escaped from them, and Garnerim had to return to Paris without his balloon. This account is from the Dublin Monthly Pantheon for November 1808. Of Guille’s parachute descent I only saw a brief notice in an American magazine, the particulars were not given.
On the 27th of September 1847 Dr Van Necke and M. Dupuis-Delcourt ascended from Brussels to try the effect of some machinery to raise and depress a balloon without the loss of gas or of ballast. No good result (it would appear) was got from the contrivance, the plan of Dr Van Neck. He required Dupuis-Delcourt to have recourse to the valve to cause the descent. On the car touching the ground Van Necke jumped out, the balloon freed from his weight rose with Dupuis-Delcourt who descended on the evening of the same day in the Commune de Vierves, Contou de Couvin, province de Namur.
Have you the particulars of the voyage of the Rev. Mr Gregg from Belfast? I will feel thankful if you would send me any account of any works on Aerostation. I hope in my next to have for you some additional matter relating to the science about which you are so interested.
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1 For ‘Bralpont’ read ‘de Breuitpont’ and ‘Honenbrinsein’ read ‘d’Honnicthein’. They ascended with Blanchard from the Hague in Holland, July 12, 1785. The owner of the land in which they alighted claimed the balloon as his property and demanded ten ducats from Blanchard who gave him a note written in French which the landowner imagined was a bill for the value of ten ducats, but discovered his mistake on presenting the note.
2 Richard Crosbie made his first ascent at Dublin, January 14, 1875.
From Edward Spencer, Esq, Solicitor. No. 11 Brunswick Parade, Pentonville, London. August 5th, 1848.
While Brown had been seeking and providing aeronautical information from MacSweeny over the past twelve months, he now recorded information he elicited from Spencer, a keen and experienced amateur aeronaut who made his first flight in 1834. The solicitor conducted a balloon making business as a sideline. Spencer is mistaken with regard Monck Manson’s reference to an aeronaut climbing his balloon’s netting. It is mentioned in Manson’s Aeronautica, but only as an example of the ludicrous stories put out about ballooning ‘without the slightest foundation in fact’.
I have to apologise for not answering your letter of the 1st ulto. until this day, but my professional engagements have wholly prevented me. In answer to your question relative to a supposed balloon ascent mentioned in Monck Mason’s work on Aerostation, wherein the aeronaut is mentioned as having climbed up the netting, so as to have enabled him to tie the silk in the upper part of the balloon, which had been accidentally torn. I can only say that I have no recollection of any such statement in the work in question and if it be there, it exhibits a lamentable ignorance on the part of the author. Such an occurrence could never have taken place unless with a balloon of the most gigantic dimensions and power, such as the Great Nassau, capable of sustaining the weight of 10 or 12 persons in the car with its accompanying ballast. It might then be possible for a person to make his way up the netting to the top of the balloon and the valve and at the same time for the balloon to preserve something like this perpendicular position with its appended car, but it must be quite manifest to yourself, that if only one or two persons ascended with a small balloon in the ordinary way, and one of the parties were to leave the car and attempt to climb outside the netting, the higher he got, the more the silk of the balloon would recede from the netting so as to place the silk quiet ←25 | 26→out of his reach and long before he could get much above the equator of the balloon. The car, silk, and valve would incline an angle of about 45 degrees. The mere weight of a man in the car would not counterbalance the weight with its corresponding leverage of a man making his way to the top of a balloon on the outside of its netting. There is no accounting for ridiculous stories, the offspring of ignorance, getting propagated, however, rest assured that such an occurrence never could have taken place under the circumstances you state.
As you appear to be interested in Aeronautic matters, I will take this opportunity of giving you a few incidents connected with myself and my friend, Mr Charles Green.
My first ascent took place from the Surrey Zoological Gardens, London, on the 25th May 1835. Since then I have made 42 ascents in different balloons, but the far greater number with the Great Nassau, and, on its second ascent, 21st September 1836. I was one of the number of 12 persons who ascended with it. The descent took place at Beckenham in Kent, the ascent from the Royal Gardens, Vauxhall. On the 15th May 1837 I ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, when the violence of the wind was such that in 20 minutes I descended at Morley in Sussex, 28 miles from London. On the 24th July 1837 I ascended from Vauxhall