The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 8, 1899, Page 23

THE SUNDAY CALL. 23 grom cold at scient as another t man over nature is of thrilling est to every one. Four men in the balloon Wega crossed the Alps from Stilten, in Switzerland, to + rent Stages of Ascent, Mt wule, in France, some distance north n. The speed was equal to that ot European rallway train, and eeded that of the most rapid express. A distance of 142 miles ered in 344 minutes. dition was undertaken for pure- rposes. The captain of the was Professor Ed Speliterini, who made more than five hundred success- balloon ascensions. He was accom- anied by the eminent geologist, Profes- sor Albert Heim, and Professor Julius :\luJ' the great meteorologist. One assenger was taken along, a student of ey Helm. The project of ascend- ¢ Alps In a balloon was broached as g0 as 1391, but it was slow of reali- Money had to be collected for the construction of the special balloon stest 1 he could tr f all the r anchore Who ound the is the prince ever of Parls, the d Prince of Globe-Jrotters is Now in San Francisco. A Man Who Walks Around the World With Four Jecretaries in _sfttendance. breadth escapes and perilous adven- tures on this walk around the world. The following, written by Mr. Altias himself, is but one of man I started from Constantinople on the 21st May, 1896, proceeding toward the in- terlor of Oriental Rumelia, accompanied mingled with the other s nature sgem one weird dis While climb unds, made all up our mind proce than to remain on the fir trs by my secretary and my two faithful uncomfortable dogs, Cerver and Hector. I was followed lanterns, we con by twelve mounted constables especially in and appointed by the Turkish authorlty for the security of our lives. We reached the plunging into muddy ground, as the e tangled branches prevented my escort compelled to fast, Turks would have killed ved, and after three oral, backed by his and, addressing me Where are we and where ? We cannot resist any out. before we ill pay dearly I realized then in a n, but I re- “I know twist of accent than the Gre- sian rather has had many hair- required, and many other preparations “were necessary. The balloon sctentific purp eter of sixty feet, capacity 3 Japanese pc and was built chambers, cc pleces of silk coats of was for se of the trip. n when fi purely in sisting of The coats. Tt made of Anjou he rubber, 21,504 with anchor, r grams. The bal and passengers addc that the balloon had to 1i as it ascended in air. to fill the balloon with ga was a delay of three day the weather appeared favorable. The wind must be in the proper direction, and the air not too cloudy to prevent exact ob: gervations. Pilot balloons were sent up finally and showed that the wind set in the proper direction to carry the balloon directly over the Alps and the Jura, i. e., southwest. Four men held the ropes of the captive balloon, ready to loose them at the sig- nal. The passengers climbed into the car that swung beneath {t and threw out sacks of ballast equal to their weight. Captain Spelterini cried ‘“lachez tout” (let go all) and the huge balloon majes- tically rose amid the shouts of thou- sands of spectators, for sclentists had come from all over Europe to see this experiment. But let Professor Heim tell of it in his own words: “It was 1 into the alr. the rate of over & yard a second, but soon commenced to go faster. We felt the wind of the valley no longer at 7200 feet, but stood still for a moment poised in the air, but the next minute, 1L: efore A—'—‘\q N I ) the balioon f ling distinetr we wa r fate th bated breath \\4 uld we be dashed by a powerful wind 1 our doubts were e highest n (10,616 feet), reach- feet above the sea ing a height of level. Our course did not diverge a mo- ment from a straight line. When we were ) feet over the valley we trav- eled horizontally 10 feet a ¥econd; when were 14,000 feet high we moved hori- zontally a second, but now we went first at 82 feet, then at 88 feet a sec- a minute. we were 18,358 feet above sea and then we descended slightly. At 343 we reached the highest point at- tained during our voyage, 22,440 feet. “The balloon was in such good condi- tion that we could have stayed up in it all night, and we had plenty of ballast, s0 the captain asked us: “‘Do you want to travel all night?' “A glance at my map showed me that we were moving direct for Paris, if the wind still held, but we were traveling so fast that we should be in Paris before midnight, and in the ocean before day- break. ““This woulfl never do, and as a descent by night is aocompanied by many dan- gers we decided that we must land now if at all. From 3:43 to 4:23 we descended from 22400 feet to 7920 feet, at a rate of 363 a minute—over six feet a second. “‘Beneath us was a sea of mist. “‘It's going too fast; drop a sack of sand overboard—now another sack! the captain shouted. “The sun was hidden behind clouds. We ‘were passing through a shower of sand, for the balloon was actually falllng faster than the sand we had thrown out. It was level, “THIS 15 YOUR LAST AMOMENT, CHRISTIAN Doe.l of Derco: it from th we r}\’\de would ‘see the end of our mis- ()e mountains n dan- We decled 10 climb up the The air was jackals, the We feared 1 s well d firing of sol- these wild bea: of the horse his men w Of course jected to ,and T can as- rrow morning we tion; if not, I leave lite.” all the men accepted d we proceeded des- were marching pain- ¥ one kilometer letely exhausted. dizziness and in haustion I swayed Aly saw his_opportunity. hand warned me of what T taken. “This E "' came v _throbbing sword, but I was pre- olver passed ,"Teiling nim Yo the if in answer to the | rang out on tha ved the murderous oldiers, who wers eir leader. A few rrounded by a twenty soldfers, ant Penniff, who tained food ad remained above at a time. e Wega over the Alps ‘\.CL?\<!\I] ascension con- aptain Spelterini without ac- in which a balloon 19,000 feet for ho ducted by C cident. “We even feel or Helm, “and our dizziness is not one of the ac- companiments of traveling by balloc long mooted question. The most wonder- ful thing of ail to us was the p quiet and sacred silence of the hei Whether the balloon went up or dow or rushed through the air with rallway speed, we felt none of it. We were in ab- Then we knew wha t About 15,000 feet you hear th did not dizzy,” says trip proved the most intensely thrilling and danger- moment of the vovage. Could we stop her tremendou cent? If not our contact with the earth would well nigh anrihilate us! Imagine falling a mile and a half! “But over went more ballast, and more —and yet more. We had dropped almost ous solute quiet. is. a mile when we slackened as we passed hing through your ears; at 15,000 f s of mist. It was depre t noise of the circulation of your and gray about us. We IS unbearable. It is 1 ook nion Spelterini was the first to from the stillness on a mountain t see the straight white lines of streets There is still the noise coming from be shining In a village. All was at last well. low, The mist did not reach so far as the the earth. We could now see how to land, ‘Until we had but there was a strong east wind. We felt well. At 14, sailed over the red roofs of a village; it co: ined of palpitation was Riviere. * ‘Half a sack of sand overboard or we shall land among the hop poles—quick! 000 feet Dr. M: severe sticking pal head and of nausea. Lurer: comp! the back of “And as we floated to the east we “At 18,000 feet and 20000 feet I felt reached open, treeless plateau, with Wonderfully well, sitting in one corner of wo00ds behind. the car on a sack of ballast. Half d “Here it was or nowhere! ing 1 looked out over the shining clc or at the yellowish horizon, or upward at the black sky. I did not wa oxygen, I feit no difficulty in brea 3 no uneasiness whatever, no ‘air-hunger.’ But the ability to work was gone, my energy was lost. It required a great ef- fort for me to take my note book up and write in it. My pulse was very weak, 1 could hardly find it, but it was quietly beating 60 to 63 times a minute. At all once I felt freezing cold. But it was so delightful to sit there quietly. Better to freeze than take the trouble to put on the cloak that lay at my side. But my conscience spoke, saying ‘1ou ought to observe, look around, note what you see!’ and I looked out, but I noticed nothing and wrote not a word. Only to sit quietly and let the balloon ascend to heavenly heights, that must be a beautiful end! “But when we had descended 1300 or 1600 feet we were as new born. The -ef- fects of the rarefied alr were felt only while we were in it ‘Let go the anchor!” “The anchor taught, the vents were opened, and hardly twenty seconds later the balloon lay half empty on the ground. It was 4:37 p. m. “The balloon had passed over 142 miles in 344 minutes, or five hours and forty-four minutes. In the upper current it had traveled 118 miles in 285 minutes. This is 40% feet a second. We had been traveling at railway speed! “But you do not feel the speed in the balloon. You seem to hover stationary in that wondrous silence. There was not the least jolting; we did not know that we were moving unless we looked intently at the earth beneath and saw it slipping by. We felt the motion as little as we feel the motion of the amh around the sun. “Our balloon journey hn.d been neither the highest nor the farthest ever taken, but it was the first that had been taken over & specified mountain, and the first “Strange to say, during all our trip none of us feit the least desire for food. “To describe the view from the balloon is like trying to describe a’symphony to a deaf man. The woods looked like the softest moss. The varying colors of the foliage were clearer than ever, melting into wondrous harmony. The lacework of field and meadow, of fruit trees and s wove a woof of beauteous color. ed far brighter from ; and as we rose took on a beauti- The cities looked like mas- streets llke white E 1 together. If I could hat I saw it would be my greatest sure, buf language 1s all too clouds, the . what words appear from earth ghest mountain peaks, be near the h er really fly very high. The atmos- re above 7000 feet T s to be with- a inhabitant. There was not d to be seen when we rose to 19,000 et, although we were over the valleys in which the ravens are most common, and I watched intently for a glimpse of Above 16,000 feet the coloring of the on and ourselves appeared to change. sun cast no wirm yellow light on but a pure white light, white to ghastliness. All of the shadows were a deep black. I noted the depth of this shadow when I had to look for some- thing in a shaded corner of the car. “If we looked first at the horizon and then at the earth the former seemed to , the latter a bright yellow. of the earth ap- at 16,000 feet and over. This was by the fact that the yellow nlight were absorbed in the c covering of the earth as we leaving the violet rays Seen from the moon, look violet. Looking at ant not less than fifty miles, they appeared a bright yellow. Im this case the white surfaces act as sources of iight behind the thick layers of at- mosphere, and the penetrating yellow- red light (reflected as blue) made the distant mountains appear yellow to our eges.” atmosphe looked toward it,