A Man in the Air

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Wonderful events always take place in obscure corners, thus foreign paperscontain accounts of a curious balloon ascent from some out-of-the-way place of a small town on the frontiers of Spain. It is stated that a Spaniard named Antonio Moles made a small balloon without any car, except a small table, on which he lay down like a boy on a sled. Upon his legs were two umbrellas, so to speak, acting freely upon their sticks, and in each hand was a set of silken screens, opening with hinges and expanding or contracting, at will. A rope, attached around hisneck, communicated with the valve of the balloon, and around his body was a belt containing six or seven pounds of shot for ballast Upon cutting himself loose from the earth, the balloon rose gently some two hundred feet, the atmosphere being perfectly calm. The aeronaut then commenced a nlotion very much resembling swimming, and the balloon began to fall off with considerable rapidity, the speed increasing as the machinery of impulsion began to work more freely. He went five miles in a straight line, and then returned, performing the whole tun mSesTnTW^BfeKifefc.v~_^.—------- E. "Walker, of Philadelphia, has raised a new kind of potatoe, which yields about six times more than the Mercers, and is ot s better quality.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 5This article was published with the title “A Man in the Air” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 5 (), p. 40
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican10161852-40e

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