The boy's playbook of science : including the various manipulations and arrangements of chemical and philosophical apparatus required for the successful performance of scientific experiments / by John Henry Pepper ; illustrated ... by H.G. Hine.

  • John Henry Pepper
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The boy's playbook of science : including the various manipulations and arrangements of chemical and philosophical apparatus required for the successful performance of scientific experiments / by John Henry Pepper ; illustrated ... by H.G. Hine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    out and joining the gores ; thirdly, the application of a good vaniish to fill up the pores of the silk, which must oe insoluble iu water, and suf- ficiently elastic not to crack. The usual material is Lidian silk (termed Corah silk), at from 2*. to 2*. %d. per yard. The (/ores or i)arts with which the balloon is constructed require, as before stated, great attention; it being a common saying amougst aeronauts, that a cobzceb toill hold the gas if properli/ shaped,''' the object being to diffuse the pressure equally over the whole bag or balloon. The varnish with which the sillc is rendered air-tight can be made according to the private recipe of Mr. Graham, an aeronaut, who states that he uses for this purpose two gallons of linseed oil (boiled), two ditto (raw), and four oun'ces of beeswax; the whole being simmered together for one hour, answers remarkably well, and the varnish is tough and not liable to crack. ]?or repairing holes in a balloon, Mr. Graham recommends a cement composed of two pounds of black resin and one pound of tallow, melted together, and applied on pieces of varnished silk to the apertures. The actual cost of a balloon will be understood from information also derived from Mr. Graham. His celebrated Victoria Balloon, which has passed through so many hairbreadth escapes, was sixty-five feet high, and thirty-eight feet in diameter in the broadest part; and the following articles were used in its construction :— £ s. d. 1400 yards of Corah silk, at 2s. &d. per yard . . 175 0 0 The netting weighed 70 lbs 20 0 0 Extra ropes weighed 20 lbs. at 2*. per lb. . . . 2 0 0 The car weighed 25 lbs 700 Varnish, wages, &c 16 0 0 £220 0 0 Thirty-eight thousand cubic feet of coal gas were required to fill this balloon, charged by one company 20/., by others from 9/. to 10?.; and eight men were required to hold the inflated baggy monster. Such a balloon as described above is a mere soap bubble when com- pared with the New Aerial Ship now building iu the vicuiity of New York ; the details are so practical and interesting, that we quote nearly the whole account of this mammoth or Great Eastern amongst balloons, as given-iii^e New York Times. An experiment in scientific ballooning, greater than has yet been undertaken, is about to be tried in tliis city. The project of crossing the Atlantic Ocean with an air-ship, long talked of, but never accom- plished, has taken a shape so definite that the apparatus is already pre- pared and the aeronaut ready to undertake his task. The work has been conducted quietly, in the immediate vicinity of New York, since the opening of spring. The new air-ship, which has
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