parachute with the balloon. At first the fall was terribly
rapid; but as soon as the parachute spread out the rapidity was
considerably diminished. The machine made, however, enormous
oscillations. The air, gathering end compressed under it, would
sometimes escape by one side sometimes by the other, thus shaking
and whirling the parachute about with a violence which, however
great, had happily no unfortunate effect.

The origin of the parachute is more remote than is generally
supposed, as there was a figure of one which appeared among a
collection of machines at Venice, in 1617.

Another species of parachute, less perfect, to be sure; than that
of Garnerin, but still a practical machine, was described 189
years before the great aeronaut's feat at Paris. We read in the
narrative of the ambassador of Louis XIV at Siam, at the end of
the seventeenth century, the following passage--"A mountebank at
the court of the King of Siam climbed to the top of a high
bamboo-tree, and threw himself into the air without any other
support than two parasols. Thus equipped, he abandoned himself to
the winds, which carried him, as by chance, sometimes to the
earth, sometimes on trees or houses, and sometimes into the
river, without any harm happening to him."

Is not this the idea of our parachutes?



Chapter IV. First Public Trial of the Balloon.