2-889-553 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

M. Petin's "System of Aerial Navigation", 1850. French milliner and balloonist Ernest Pétin '..has sought to give to his apparatus the greatest possible power, while diminishing the resistance he has to overcome. This resistance is the surrounding medium - the air. He has given himself great power by employing four spherical balloons of immense volume...M. Petin has, always with the view of diminishing resistance, placed his balloons one behind the other; and he has armed the prow of his ship with a conical appendage, that it may cleave the air more easily. His balloons, of which each, says he, should have the diameter of the Corn-Exchange of Paris - say 90 feet - are joined together by an immense framework, 162½ yards long by about 70½ yards broad, upon which the passengers will be placed'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.