Wonderful Balloon Ascents: or, the Conquest of the Skies



A History of Balloons and Balloon Voyages.

from the French of F. Marion

1870



PREFACE

"Let posterity know, and knowing be astonished, that on the
fifteenth day of September, 1784, Vincent Lunardi of Lucca, in
Tuscany, the first aerial traveller in Britain, mounting from the
Artillery Ground in London, and traversing the regions of the air
for two hours and fifteen minutes, on this spot revisited the
earth. In this rude monument for ages be recorded this wondrous
enterprise successfully achieved by the powers of chemistry and
the fortitude of man, this improvement in science which the great
Author of all Knowledge, patronising by his Providence the
inventions of mankind, hath graciously permitted, to their
benefit and his own eternal glory."

The stone upon which the above inscription was carved, stands, or
stood recently, near Collier's End, in the parish of Standon,
Hertfordshire; and it will possibly afford the English reader a
more accurate idea of the feelings with which the world hailed