The Balloonist Read Online Free PDF Page B

abominably. His methods of gas production were also primitive, although conventional for those days. He was obliged to produce his hydrogen on the spot by adding iron filings to a large earthenware flask of muriatic acid, and then to remove all traces of acid and other moisture from the product by passing it through a system of filters. The gas was then piped to the filling tube of the balloon, which had to be held in position by the three of us as it swelled and gradually assumed form. The whole process took a matter of three or four hours, broken by intervals in which it was necessary for Professor Eggert to uncap the flask and add more acid and filings. At last the balloon stood up like a soufflé with the basket underneath it, the whole prevented from rising only by the weight of a couple of bags of sand. The hockey players on the field, when they saw that preparations were imminent, stopped to watch us.
    Then occurred an extraordinary and, as one looks back on it, quite childish confusion. It became clear only at this point that the balloon would carry only two persons, and the Professor had not thought out the practical arrangements to the point of deciding who these two were to be. He invited me to climb in, and climbed in himself, leaving Waldemer standing on the grassy field, still polite, still cheerful, but holding the basket firmly with one hand. Waldemer pointed out that he had come all the way out from Harrisburg on commission from his newspaper to describe the sensations of a balloon ascension and would suffer a monetary loss if prevented from doing so. This seemed reasonable to me and I climbed out. Waldemer mounted into the basket, whereupon the Professor climbed out and stood on the ground beside me; not out of any kind of displeasure or petulance, but simply because it seemed to him better, until these practical questions had been settled, for everyone to get out and discuss the matter calmly with both feet on the ground. Waldemer, however, was not easily persuaded to come down. Cheerfully, doggedly, and intelligently, reinforcing his position with logic, he clung to the basket of this celestial bicycle, which was soon to solve for him another of the anatomical flaws of man, his lack of wings. His well-modeled chin was set and it was clear he was not going to get down. What benefit could this ascension or any other ascension possibly have for mankind unless mankind became aware of it? And how could mankind become aware ofit unless modern journalism disseminated its notice over the world? If this ascension was worth undertaking, it was only in that it might become part of the annals of man’s progress, and the custodians of these annals were those who converted ephemeral events into the permanency of print, i.e., himself, Waldemer, the other employees of the New York
Herald
, and their colleagues throughout the nation and the world.
    It might be thought that Professor Eggert gave in to him out of weariness, but this was not so. In the end Professor Eggert was persuaded by his argument. In spite of his abstruseness, his scientific reclusiveness, he was not insensible to the benefits and even the necessity of publicity. He invited me to climb in, I took my place beside Waldemer, and Waldemer pulled the cord of the bursting valve in the belief that it was the rope that released the ballast. The silk bag gave a gasp, doubled inward at the centre like a man who has been stabbed with a dagger, and quite slowly began to sink down over us. The hockey players gave mock cheers. We had plenty of time to get out of the basket and join Professor Eggert before the balloon lay like a heap of discarded clothing at our feet.
    Of iron filings there was a copious abundance, since central Pennsylvania is freckled with iron mills, but muriatic acid was expensive. I was forced to resort to my own pocketbook to buy another demijohn, which had to be brought out from Harrisburg in a wagon. In any case, the ascension was