the fire was increased it again mounted and got clear from the branches while the people below, grasping the cords that were hung out to them, guided the machine to the spot which the voyagers indicated. To descend to terra firma was then a comparatively easy matter, and it was safely accomplished. The fire, which in the case of the French balloons had dried, calcined, and almost consumed the upper part of the balloon, had no evil effect upon that of Andriani, which came down looking as fresh as if it had never been used.
The new idea had now passed the frontiers of France, in which it was originally conceived, and among the other nations, as at first in France, the power of the inflated balloon came to be tested everywhere by the construction of small toy globes.
It was just about five months after the first experiment at Annonay—viz., on the 25th of November, 1783—that the first balloon ascended in London. We are informed, in the History of Aerostation by Tiberius Cavallo, that an Italian, Count Zambeccari, who was staying in the English capital, made a balloon of silk, covered with a varnish of oil. Its diameter was ten feet, and its weight eleven pounds. It was gilded for the double purpose of enhancing its appearance and preventing the escape of air. After having been exposed to public inspection for several days, it was filled three parts full of hydrogen gas, a tin bottle was suspended from it, containing an address to whoever might find it when it should fall, and it was let off from the Artillery Ground, in presence of a vast assembly.
On the 11th of December, 1783, a little balloon, made of gold-beaters' skin, was let off publicly at Turin. This was an experiment similar to that which had been tried at
