第96章 CHAPTER XXVII. THE POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WA

But we have another, relating to one of the most distinguished aeronauts, M. Eugene Godard, who, in an ascent with local journalists, was caught in a thunderstorm. Here we are told--presumably by the journalists--that "twice the lightning flashed within a few yards of the terror-stricken crew."

Once again, in an ascent at Derby, a spectator writes:--"The lightning played upon the sphere of the balloon, lighting it up and making things visible through it." This, however, one must suppose, can hardly apply to the balloon when liberated.

But a graphic description of a very different character given in the "Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society" for January, 1901, is of real value. It appears that three lieutenants of the Prussian Balloon Corps took charge of a balloon that ascended at Berlin, and, when at a height of 2,300 feet, became enveloped in the mist, through which only occasional glimpses of earth were seen. At this point a sharp, crackling sound was heard at the ring, like the sparking of a huge electrical machine, and, looking up, the voyagers beheld sparks apparently some half-inch thick, and over two feet in length, playing from the ring. Thunder was heard, but--and this may have significance--only before and after the above phenomenon.

Another instructive experience is recorded of the younger Green in an ascent which he made from Frankfort-on-the-Maine. On this occasion he relates that he encountered a thunderstorm, and at a height of 4,400 feet found himself at the level where the storm clouds were discharging themselves in a deluge. He seems to have had no difficulty in ascending through the storm into the clear sky above, where a breeze from another quarter quickly carried him away from the storm centre.

This co-existence, or conflict of opposite currents, is held to be the common characteristic, if not the main cause, of thunderstorms, and tallies with the following personal experience. It was in typical July weather of 1900 that the writer and his son, accompanied by Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle and Mr. Percival Spencer, made an evening ascent from Newbury.

It had been a day of storms, but about 5 p.m., after what appeared to be a clearing shower, the sky brightened, and we sailed up into a cloudless heaven. The wind, at 3,000 feet, was travelling at some thirty miles an hour, and ere the distance of ten miles had been covered a formidable thunder pack was seen approaching and coming up dead against the wind.