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18Th Century Science of Ballooning NO. 107: JUNE 2015 ISSN: 1751-8261 MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE Contents Ballooning History 1-2 Timepieces & Travels 3 Polar Travel Technologies 4-5 Grant Reports 6-7 Maps from Antiquity 8-9 Darwin Down-Under 9 Freight Rail History 10-11 Roaming Naturalists 11-12 Moving Minds 13-14 Conference Report 14 Interview - Ben Marsden 15 BJHS, Viewpoint, BSHS info. 16 Signed admission ticket for Blanchard Balloon ascent from Chelsea, October 16, 1784. Editorial Courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London. I As many of us head off on conferences or holidays this June, this issue of Viewpoint Up and Away! 18th Century roams far and wide on the topic of travel. A feature by Caitlín Doherty notes the Science of Ballooning challenges and opportunities of vertical travel in the 18th century (1-2). Marionne Caitlín Doherty on the lofty ambitions of 18th century balloonists Cronin reflects on how polar travellers wrapped up warm with under-explored Distance travelled is usually measured along a France and Britain. This view, however, is one pieces of kit (4-5), and Erin Beeston also horizontal axis, but for a group of natural phi- derived from the terrestrial position of watch- highlights neglected technologies in her losophers, showmen, and members of a rapt ing a balloon rise. To begin to understand discussion of freight rail (10-11). Katherine public audience at the end of the eighteenth the complex and multiple roles of balloons in McAlpine’s article on maritime timepieces century, vertical movement was a far more this period, it’s necessary to take an imagina- explores historical travel necessities (3). exciting prospect. tive step inside the basket of an aerostat. This Geographical curiosities are covered by The invention of balloons capable of carry- reveals that although the balloon was itself Cristiano Turbil’s article on how Darwin’s ing human weight (and at first the weights of the product of a series of natural philosophical ideas circulated the globe (9) and by various farmyard animals) took place in France inquiries into the nature of gases, it was also a Dmitry Shcheglov’s piece on Ptomley’s during the year 1783. First the Montgolfier site of knowledge production. In Britain, dur- maps (8-9). Metaphorical movements are brothers created a linen sack, which they ing the final 15 years of the 18th century, the discussed by Anne M. Thell on brains in inflated with noxious smokes in the fields hydrogen balloon observed from the ground early modern science writing (12-13) and of Annonay. They then repeated this at the seemed a levitating testimony to mankind’s Richard Bellon writes on bringing science Tuileries gardens in Paris before a royal audi- genius. For the aeronaut above, however, a back home (11-12). ence. Shortly after, Jacques Charles and the dangerous and unpredictable experimental Also featured are reports on the promo- Robert brothers pioneered the use of hydro- journey was in progress. tion of family friendly history of science by gen as a much safer (and less fragrant) lifting The reputation of balloons as scientific Laura Hobbs and on a fascinating 20th cen- agent for aerostats, and balloons became a instruments suffered early on from association tury statistician by Jochen F. Mayer (6-7). popular European phenomenon. So goes the with insubstantial properties of airs and gases, Contributions to the next issue should traditional history of humankind’s first experi- and from balloons’ popularity among the be sent to [email protected] by 15th ence of flight. The balloon has since become a general public. To rectify some of the discredit August 2015 symbol of Enlightenment thought and culture, poured upon them – notably by men such as Alice White, Editor representative of an early-Romantic escape Joseph Banks – those who fashioned them- from the limits of the Earth, especially in selves as aerial pioneers took two approaches: 2 Viewpoint No. 107 firstly, the formation of a literary mode meant to convey the emotional and aesthetic intensity of the experience of flight; secondly, detailed scientific records of the environmen- tal and physical phenomena encountered on the flights. Though I have divided these approaches into separate categories, for the writers of aeronautical accounts there existed no such distinction. Thus within the space of a page in Thomas Baldwin’s account of a flight over Chester in 1785, one reads: The Fluctuation of the Barometer he imag- ined to arise from continued exertions of the Gas within the Balloon, opposed by the atmospheric Air, which varying in Density and Temperature would give an unequal Resistance to the Balloon … But what Scenes of Grandeur and Beauty! A Tear of pure Delight flashed in his Eye! of pure and exquisite Delight and Rapture; to look down on the unexpected Change already wrought ‘GLOBE DIODON FISH’ from A new dictionary of natural history, W.F. Martyn (1785), in the Works of Art and Nature, contracted to held at the Zoological Library, University of Cambridge. Photograph by Caitlín Doherty a Span by the NEW PERSPECTIVE Baldwin, Airopaidia, Chester, 1786, p.36 with which it had to be coated to prevent gas meteorology at the time. The ascent and This juxtaposition of sterile observation and leaks, to the costly production of hydrogen descent of the balloon could, in good circum- emotional rapture might strike us as strange, required for inflation, aerostatic flight was a stances, be reliably influenced by ballast, and but is in keeping with contemporary philo- matter of wealth beyond most individuals’ release of hydrogen via a valve in the balloon, sophical ideas, such as Edmund Burke’s theory means. Groups such as the Royal Society were but no one could make a balloon travel from of the sublime as a human response natural unwilling to fund aerial travel until the philo- one location on the earth to another with any phenomena, and David Hume’s attempt to sophical merit of flight had been established, predictable success. It was generally assumed outline a Science of Man. To experience the but to do this aeronauts had themselves to that the solution must lie in parallels between emotional side of balloon flight in the socially appeal to the public for the money. Subscrip- movement through the air and movement correct fashion required an education in the tion services were set up, with tiered ticketing on water, so that aeronauts such as Blanchard natural sciences. systems (see cover image). Pay more, and experimented with oars for rowing the bal- One literary trope in accounts of early aerial you would gain access to behind-the-scenes loon in the required direction. Samuel Hoole voyages is the inclusion of a list of recom- secrets of hydrogen manufacture, and bal- took the air-water parallel to the extreme, by mended equipment for the flight. While this loon inflation. Pay nothing, and you would suggesting that balloons should be modelled may seem like helpful advice to the would-be be excluded from understanding the rational on a certain species of newly-discovered balloonist, these litanies can also be read as causes of balloon-flight, left in the urban pufferfish that could inflate at will, meaning didactic exclusions and invitations: if you do crowds to crane your neck and watch the balloonists would be able to navigate the not know how to read a barometer, do not aerostat vanish behind the clouds. aerial ocean like fish out of water. The first bother flying! These experiences are marvel- Tensions arose rapidly in Britain between writer to theorise the production and history lously serious affairs, not to be undertaken those who saw ballooning as both an end of balloons, Tiberius Cavallo, gave credit to “lightly”. Baldwin gives us two pages and in itself, and a means to live by, and those their use as exploratory vehicles with which twenty points of precise recommendations who wished to utilise the balloon to increase aerial currents could be mapped, and includes an exclusive warning, human knowledge, particularly about the Indeed it is not known that those different The following Inventory, with which he atmosphere. Although they flew together currents always exist; but it is not unlikely [Baldwin] ascended, may be of Use to future twice, the relationship between Blanchard that they, as has been the case with the Aironauts; to whom only it is addressed. and Jeffries was famously strained, in part due currents of various seas, may be better Baldwin, p.9 to their different aims as aeronauts. While Jef- ascertained by future experience and inves- The contrast in styles in Baldwin’s writing fries saw balloon experiments as his way into tigation; and we have now in our power the also reinforces a central conflict in the use of membership of the Royal Society, Blanchard means of examining them at any time. balloons in their earliest years in Britain: no was already cultivating an image as a profes- Tiberius Cavallo, The History and Practice of one could decide whether the balloon was the sional aeronaut. The character of Jeffries is Aerostation (London, 1785), p.193 subject or the product of scientific investiga- revealed to us through his self-presentation Though our modern view of balloon-flight is tion. Balloon flights were both experiments in a portrait by John Russell: ownership of one of calmness, solitude and Romantic con- in themselves, and sites of experimental instruments was so important to him that he templation, the reality of flight for 18th cen- behaviour. is depicted caressing his barometer in the por- tury aeronauts was fraught with danger and Preparing a balloon for flight required trait. But he is also dressed extravagantly for tension.
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