aries of the atmosphere are at no great height, and
that the aerial vessel, in order to its being borne up, must be placed
on the surface of the air, just as a ship, in order to its being
supported, must be placed on the surface of the water. And, whatever may
be meant by his "ethereal air and liquid fire," there is no evidence
that he, or any one living in that age, had any knowledge of the various
and distinct gases. Bacon merely reasoned and theorized on the subject;
he never attempted to realize these flying projects by actual
experiment.

It was not till the year 1782 that the art of aerial navigation was
discovered, and the merit of the discovery is due to two brothers,
wealthy paper manufacturers, at Annonay, not far from Lyons--Stephen and
Joseph Montgolfier. This discovery they did not arrive at from any
scientific reasoning founded on the elasticity and weight of the
atmosphere, for, though attached to the study of mathematics and
chemistry, they do not appear to have particularly turned their
attention to aerostatics; but, from observing how clouds and smoke rise
and float in the atmosphere, it occurred to Stephen, the younger of the
two, that a light paper bag, filled with cloud or smoke, would, from the
natural tendency of these substances to ascend, be carried by their
force in an upward direction.

About the middle of November, 1782, they made their first experiment in
their own chamber at Avignon, with a light paper bag of an oblong shape,
which they inflated, by applying burning paper to an orifice in the
lower part of the bag, and in a few minutes they had the satisfaction of
seeing it ascend to the ceiling of the chamber. Constructing a paper bag
of larger dimensions, they made a similar experiment in the open air,
with equal success, and, the bag being of a spherical shape, they gave
it the name of balloon, from its resemblance to a large, round,
short-necked, chemical vessel so called. Finding, from repeated trials,
that the larger the balloon the more successful was the experiment, they
proceeded to construct one of linen lined with paper, 35 feet in
diameter; and, on the 25th of April, 1783, after being filled with
rarified air, it rapidly rose to the height of 1000 feet, and fell to
the ground at the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the spot
where it ascended. Encouraged by this success, the Montgolfiers came to
the resolution of making a public experiment with this last constructed
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