they proceeded to introduce a cloud of smoke into it by holding
crumpled paper kindled in a chafing dish beneath the open
mouth. What a subject is there here for an imaginative
painter! As the smoky cloud formed within, the bag distended
itself, became buoyant, and presently floated to the ceiling.
The simple trial proved a complete success, due, as it appeared
to them, to the ascensive power of a cloud of smoke.

An interesting and more detailed version of the story is
extant. While the experiment was in progress a neighbour, the
widow of a tradesman who had been connected in business with
the firm, seeing smoke escaping into the room, entered and
stood watching the proceedings, which were not unattended with
difficulties. The bag, half inflated, was not easy to hold in
position over the chafing dish, and rapidly cooled and
collapsed on being removed from it. The widow noting this, as
also the perplexity of the young men, suggested that they
should try the result of tying the dish on at the bottom of the
bag. This was the one thing wanted to secure success, and that
good lady, whose very name is unhappily lost, deserves an
honoured place in history. It was unquestionably the adoption
of her idea which launched the first balloon into space.

The same experiment repeated in the open air proving a yet more
pronounced success, more elaborate trials were quickly
developed, and the infant balloon grew fast. One worthy of the
name, spherical in shape and of some 600 cubic feet capacity,
was now made and treated as before, with the result that ere it
was fully inflated it broke the strings that held it and sailed
away hundreds of feet into the air. The infant was fast