A “(Mostly) True” Picture Book Landing Now

On Publishers Weekly’s new list of the best picture books of the year is A Voyage in the Clouds: The (Mostly) True Story of the First International Flight by Balloon in 1785, written by Matthew Olshan and illustrated by Sophie Blackall.

The journal’s review of the book said:

The team behind the The Mighty Lalouche (2013) recounts the first international balloon journey, an expedition across the English Channel undertaken by a British doctor named Jeffries and a French balloonist named Blanchard in 1785. Tension arises even before the balloon leaves the ground as Jeffries discovers that Blanchard is plotting to exclude him from the trip. The two men cold-shoulder each other as the journey gets underway, but when the balloon starts to lose altitude, Blanchard’s heroism turns them into friends and allies. (They’re in their bloomers at the time, and Olshan keeps their rapprochement from getting too sentimental with a hilarious peeing scene.)

The baroque ornamentation and carefully lettered speech balloons of Blackall’s spreads recall the work of George Cruikshank; like him, she has a gift for revealing that people dressed in petticoats and tricorne hats are just as human as the rest of us. With humor that’s never snarky, Olshan reminds readers that, sometimes, the challenge adventurers must overcome is not the elements; it’s their own vanity. Ages 4–8.

Dr. John Jeffries was indeed British at the time of this flight, but he was born and raised in Boston. He had become a Loyalist, serving as a British military physician during the war. In 1789, after tensions had dissipated a bit (and he saw an inheritance in Massachusetts while running out of money in Britain), Jeffries returned to his native town for the latter part of his career.

Deborah Kalb interviewed Olshan about the book, asking in particular about that parenthetical word in the subtitle:

Q: The subtitle describes it as a “(mostly) true story.” What did you see as the right blend of the historical facts and your own imagination?

A: The phrase you singled out from the subtitle—“(mostly) true”—is a source of lively conversation about the book. Roger Sutton of The Horn Book wrote an editorial on this very subject in his blog,…in which he describes the challenge for a reviewer in properly categorizing A Voyage in the Clouds; i.e., can a book that characterizes itself as “mostly true” be considered “non-fiction?”

My story was certainly inspired by the flight of Jeffries and Blanchard; most of the events in the story actually happened as they’re described, as I explain in the Author’s Note. But I did take a few liberties in the interest of keeping young readers engaged.

If a book is to be presented as “non-fiction” or taught in classrooms as “history,” I think an author has a responsibility to volunteer the fact that he has departed from the historical record.

But even a story that hews as closely as possible to historical facts as they’ve been received and strives mightily to represent the “factual” is going to wind up being fiction, to a certain degree, if only by depicting the modern author’s impossible intimacy with his protagonists.

The author can’t have known them, but it’s essential to his “authority” that he seem to have.

For Boston 1775’s intimate retelling of Dr. Jeffries’s voyage with Jean Pierre Blanchard, from all the way back in 2006, start here.

Dr. Jeffries’s Hat

Last week the anniversary of the first balloon crossing of the English Channel by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and Dr. John Jeffries, a Boston native, got a lot of attention on the web.

There was an article about making a similar journey by Dr. Tom Crouch of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, who’s working on a book about Jeffries. His past books include The Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America.

And the Houghton Library at Harvard pulled out the hat that Jeffries wore on his first balloon trip and when he had his portrait made. It turns out to be cut from a jaguar pelt.

My father looked at the Houghton material decades back, and he told me it included a fabric sample from the balloon. I didn’t see that when I looked at the documents in the last fifteen years, but I see that’s now a separate collection. Glad it didn’t float away.

My version of the Channel-crossing story from 2006 starts here.

Dr. John Jeffries: physician, Loyalist, aeronaut, part 7

This series of postings, starting with Part 1, has brought Dr. John Jeffries from his early medical practice in Boston to floating across the English Channel on a balloon in January 1785. Jeffries then returned to London, apparently hoping for adulation as a man of science and adventure.

And to some extent his feat was recognized. Jeffries was made a "Baron of the Cinq Ports," a minor honorary title. His position as a fashionable doctor seemed assured. But he didn't receive the financial reward and pension that the French king had given his companion, Jean Pierre Blanchard.

In 1787, at the age of forty-two, Jeffries remarried, to a twenty-two-year-old Englishwoman named Hannah Hunt. They had several children together, though two died sadly young, according to family records: Harriet Maria “smothered" before her first birthday, and Robinson Ardesoif “burnt to death" at the age of five. Some of their other children lived considerably longer, including a John Jr. who also became a doctor and practiced for 57 years until his death in 1876.

In 1789, Jeffries received letters from family in Massachusetts "urging the necessity of his immediately repairing to Boston, to secure some property which had devolved to him by the death of a near relative.” He returned to his native town with his new wife and children. His father, town treasurer David Jeffries, had never left. Even his medical mentor and fellow Loyalist, Dr. James Lloyd, had ridden out the war in Boston. In April 1790, Jeffries decided to stay and become an American citizen.

Within a few years Dr. Jeffries was a popular local physician, respected despite his service with the British military. Local writers accepted his stories of identifying Dr. Joseph Warren's body on Bunker Hill and finding new ways to treat smallpox, though they were often self-serving. The 1801 Massachusetts Register listed Jeffries as practicing on "Franklin-Street, near the Tontine."

As for the small French aeronaut Blanchard, his republican beliefs made his home country somewhat unwelcoming in the 1780s, so he traveled Europe, making the first or early balloon ascents from Frankfurt-am-Main, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Berlin, Breslau, Warsaw, and Vienna. After the French Revolution, the new government in Paris continued the pension that the king had granted the traveler.

On 9 Dec 1792, Blanchard arrived in Philadelphia on a ship from Hamburg, bringing "4200 weight of vitriolic acid." That was, he announced in the newspapers, "the quantity necessary to effect my own ascension, once." He no longer cared for aerial companions. On 9 Jan 1793, Blanchard made the first balloon flight in America, taking off from the grounds of the Walnut Street Prison, as shown in the engraving above.

Samuel Breck, a Boston native who became a businessman in Philadelphia, met both Jeffries and Blanchard. He wrote of their voyage over the Channel:

I have heard the account of this trip from Blanchard given with feelings of asperity that were not reciprocated in my hearing by the doctor. The Frenchman was from some cause or other displeased, and being intent upon revenge took a very public manner of insulting his companion. He employed Fielding, the best coachmaker of Philadelphia, to build him a vehicle that was to go without horses. The machinery that moved it was worked by a man standing on the footboard behind, who by the alternate pressure of his feet set the wheels going and expanded the wings of an eagle, that by constantly flapping them seemed to draw the carriage along by its flight. On the panels of this carriage, which was exhibited in all the large towns in the United States, he caused the doctor to be painted in the balloon, with a bottle of brandy to his mouth, intimating by the motto beneath that without the aid of this Dutch courage his fortitude would have wholly forsaken him.

Jeffries apparently kept his notes and his cool throughout the flight, so this seems to be Blanchard's jealousy about having to share any glory with his patron and passenger.

Blanchard died in 1809 after suffering a heart attack during a balloon ascent. His widow, Madeléine-Sophie Blanchard, became a famous aeronaut in her own right; she died on 7 July 1819 when her hydrogen balloon caught fire and she fell to the Paris street below.

Two months later, on 16 Sept 1819, Dr. John Jeffries died in Boston of, a medical colleague wrote, “an inflammation in his bowels, originating in a hernia, occasioned by great exertions in his first aërial voyage."

Dr. John Jeffries: physician, Loyalist, aeronaut, part 6

Part 5 of this series of postings left Jean Pierre Blanchard and Dr. John Jeffries dangling in their balloon a few yards above the English Channel. They had tossed out all their ballast, their pamphlets, parts of their balloon's car, and their overcoats. But still the balloon descended. The two men put on their cork life jackets and awaited impact.

Then the weather conditions suddenly changed. "Four or five miles from the shore" of France, the balloon started to rise. Soon, Jeffries judged, "We now ascended to a much greater height than at any former period of our Voyage, and exactly at three o’clock we passed over the high grounds between Cape Blanez and Blackness.” The balloon had completed the first aerial crossing of the English Channel, 7 January 1785.

Blanchard tossed out a packet of letters, and the men enjoyed watching it descend below them, "appearing, in its progress, to pass along over inclosures, houses, roads, &c. as if running after us.” In other words, the papers were traveling at the same speed as the balloon when Blanchard dropped them, and their momentum meant they kept traveling horizontally even as they fell vertically. Isn't Newtonian physics wonderful?

Jeffries and Blanchard then discovered a new problem: “from the height which we were now at, and from the loss of our cloaths, we were almost benumbed with cold.” It was January, after all. But that worry didn't last. The balloon began to descend again, and a large forest appeared below. Since it would be too dangerous to come down there, the aeronauts once again looked for things to throw out so the balloon stay up.

Jeffries and Blanchard “cast away one cork-jacket, and soon after it the other,” those "being the only things we had then left, excepting the Barometer." The doctor refused to discard his instrument—not only did it represent his desire to put aeronautics on a more scientific footing, but it was expensive. (He holds it in his portrait in ballooning gear.) Jeffries reported:

I felt the necessity of casting away something, to alter our course; happily (it almost instantly occurred to me, that probably we might be able to supply it from within ourselves), from the recollection that we had drank much at breakfast, and not having had any evacuation; and from the severe cold, little or no perspiration had taken place, that probably an extra quantity had been secreted by the kidneys, which we might now avail ourselves of by discharging. I instantly proposed my idea to M. Blanchard, and the event fully justified my expectation; and taking down from the circle over our Car two of the bladders, for reservoirs, we were enabled to obtain, I verily believe, between five and six pounds of urine; which circumstance, however trivial or ludicrous it may seem, I have reason to believe, was of real utility to us, in our then function; for by casting it away, as we were approaching some trees of the forest higher than the rest, it so altered our course, that, instead of being forced hard against, or into them (as at that instant appeared probable that we should be), we passed along near them in such a manner, as enabled me to catch hold of the topmost branches of one of them, and thereby arrest the farther progress of the Balloon

While Jeffries held the tree branches, Blanchard opened the balloon's valve, slowly letting out hydrogen. Pushing from one branch or tree to another, the men were able "to descend tranquilly to the surface of the ground" in half an hour. They had arrived in "the Forest of Guines, not far from Andres, and near the spot celebrated for the famous interview between Henry the Eighth, King of England, and Francis the First, King of France.” (This meeting was called the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The engraving above depicts Blanchard and Jeffries's balloon over the French countryside.)

In a short time locals arrived, including the Viscount Desandrouin. They provided the aeronauts with enough clothing to keep them warm and invited them to Calais. After recovering, the two men went on to Paris, where French society lavished most of its attention on Blanchard. He had an audience in Versailles with "the King, the Royal Family, the Minister, and other great Officers of State; and received, by Royal Order, a present of 12,000 livres, with a pension annexed of 1,200 livres a year; and as a perpetual memorial of this event, the place where we descended, to be called in future the Canton of Blanchard.”

Jeffries returned to England and published his account of the trip, which I've been quoting. He closed by noting he had been made "a founder and perpetual Member" of the new museum in Paris and an honorary citizen of Dover. Then he assured his readers that the “approbation…of his countrymen” will be “full compensation for those honours and rewards the French Court have partially bestowed on their Countryman." Hint, hint, hint.

Did Dr. Jeffries get the honor and rewards he was hoping for? See Part 7.

Dr. John Jeffries: physician, Loyalist, aeronaut, part 5

After their first flight together, in November 1784, Boston-born Loyalist Dr. John Jeffries and French balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard set their sights on an aerial voyage more spectacular than any yet attempted: crossing the Channel from England to France.

Such a long voyage, largely over water, would be the most daring feat in the young science of aeronautics. With Britain and France at war until the beginning of 1783, showing that it was possible to cross silently from one country to the other carried military implications. And whoever survived such a flight would gain tremendous international glory—not a small consideration for men like Jeffries and Blanchard.

In Dec 1784, Jeffries returned to London to write an account of their first balloon trip, and no doubt to the plaudits of British society. He had agreed to pay Blanchard's expenses in assembling a new balloon and filling it with hydrogen gas in Dover. The two aeronauts traveled to that southern English town on the 17th. Almost immediately, cracks began to appear in the partnership. Jeffries suspected Blanchard of trying

to prejudice the minds of some of the principal Gentlemen of the County of Kent, and of the City of Dover, insinuating, that from the incapacity of the Balloon it was madness to attempt the experiment with two persons, unless the Balloon could carry an hundred pound weight of ballast. The pretended friends of M. Blanchard, his Countrymen, publicly circulated such reports of my having declined the enterprize...

At a weigh-in to determine how much the balloon would have to carry, Blanchard wore "a concealed heavy girdle" to increase his weight, trying to leave no room for the doctor.

The Governor of Dover Castle sat down with both men to clarify their (written) agreement. It became clear that Jeffries, who was paying the bills, was willing to travel without Blanchard if only one man could go. From then on, the little Frenchman stopped talking about the balloon being too small for two men.

The morning of 7 January 1785 "was remarkably fine, clear, and serene, but with intense frost"—the first day that seemed right for the launching. The team watched the clouds, smoke from Dover Castle, a kite, “a paper Montgolfier, and a small gaz balloon”—all of which indicated wind blowing across the Channel. After noon, the balloon was filled, dragged to the cliffs of Dover, and attached to the car and Blanchard's useless wings and oars. The two men climbed in, and the balloon took off at 1:00. There were crowds not only on land, but also salutes from ships in the sea below.

The balloon soon rose high enough for Blanchard and Jeffries to be able to see both England and France as the car twirled. However, it was also traveling slowly eastward—not the best direction. Gradually the wind shifted to carry the balloon toward France, and the two men turned their attention to attaching their flotation devices—inflated animal bladders—to the hoop between the car and balloon. But at 1:50, Jeffries realized, “having, I judge, been too inattentive to the state of the tubes...we were descending fast.” They were about a third of the way across the Channel.

The men tossed out a sack and a half of ballast, and the balloon rose again—for a while. Soon they had to toss out “the remaining sack and a half of ballast, sacks and all," followed by all the pamphlets Blanchard had brought to toss out over his native land. Jeffries recalled

We had not now any thing left to cast away as ballast in future, excepting the wings, apparatus, and ornaments of the Car, with our cloaths, and a few little articles; but as a counterpart to such a situation, we here had a most enchanting and alluring view of the French coast, from Blackness and Cape Blanez to Calais, and on to Gravelines, &c.

At 2:30—

the Balloon did not appear to be three-fourths filled with gaz. We immediately threw out all the little things we had with us, such as biscuits, apples, &c. and after that one of our oars or wings; but still descending, we cast away the other wing. . . . I now succeeded in attempting to reach without [i.e. outside] the Car, and unscrewing the moulinet, with all its apparatus; I likewise cast that into the sea.——Notwithstanding all which, the Balloon not rising, we cut away all the lining and ornaments, both within, and on the outside of the Car, and in like manner threw them into the sea; after which, we cast away the only bottle we had taken with us, which in its descent appeared to force out a considerably steam like smoke, with a hissing or rushing noise; and when it struck the water, we very sensibly (the instant before we heard the sound) felt the force of the shock on our Car; it appearing to have fallen directly perpendicular to us, although we had passed a considerable way during its descent.

Despite thinking of himself as a gentleman of science, Jeffries was apparently surprised by seeing Newton's laws of motion in action.

But still the balloon kept falling. It was only three-quarters across the Channel, and below the level of the French cliffs.

We were obliged, though very unwillingly, to throw away our anchors and cords; but still approaching the sea, we began to strip ourselves, and cast away our cloathing, M. Blanchard first throwing away his extra coat, with his surtout; after which I cast away my only coat...

The emphases are Jeffries's, making a point that Blanchard brought more heavy clothing than he did. Meanwhile, the water was getting closer.

...and then M. Blanchard [tossed away] his other coat and trowsers: We then put on and adjusted our cork-jackets [i.e., life jackets], and prepared for the event.

That event comes in Part 6.

Dr. John Jeffries: physician, Loyalist, aeronaut, part 4

The first of this series of postings described how Dr. John Jeffries is sometimes called the first American to fly, even though he didn't see himself as an American at the time, but rather as a loyal British subject. It was 30 Nov 1784, and Jeffries and the French balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard had just taken off from the Rhedarium Garden in London, as described in yesterday's posting.

Dr. Jeffries thought that the early reports of aerial voyages lacked scientific rigor, with balloonists describing their feats and their sensations rather than measuring the atmosphere objectively. Therefore, he had equipped Blanchard's hydrogen balloon with some of the most advanced instruments available:

• thermometer, for measuring temperature
• barometer, for measuring air pressure (which, of course, varies with altitude as well as weather)
• hydrometer, for measuring humidity
• electrometer, for measuring electrical activity
• timepiece
• compass
• telescope
• thin ribbon, with scissors and knife for cutting it, to throw out and see whether the balloon was going up or down
• several small glass bottles filled with distilled water and sealed
• a "little dog"
• a notebook and silver pencil, which he judged to be less likely to be affected by the thin air than either a pen or an ordinary pencil.

One of the aeronauts' first experiments, however, was to try Blanchard's invention of oars, wings, and rudder to steer the course of the balloon. (This apparatus appears in the illustration above.) Blanchard had a good idea, in theory: being to direct the course of a balloon would make it much more useful for transportation and warfare. However, the force of wind on a large balloon was far stronger than anything two men could counteract with artificial wings. Jeffries still insisted the experiment was a success:

M. Blanchard applied himself to the oars, which he had made some experiment of on our first ascent, and which (though inadequate to the government of the Balloon) appeared to me very materially to influence the course, ascent, and progress of the Balloon; and with which we could, by acting with but one oar or wing, always turn round the Car and Balloon.

In other words, the men found they couldn't steer their balloon, but could twist in the wind.

Jeffries noted down many measurements of the thermometer, barometer, and hyrdrometer. As to the electrometer, he wrote that its indicator "Though frequently attended to, I never observed to be any ways affected" by the altitude. By pulling the stoppers of the little glass bottles, he filled them with air from the various altitudes, then sealed them up again. He also tried to track the path of the balloon. For instance, at 2:59 PM:

we passed over what appeared to me to be a pavement; but which, upon examining with my prospect-glass, I was surprized to find, were the tops of a forest or wood. . . . Mr. Blanchard threw out a few more of his pamphlets; and I, at this time, amused myself in writing four cards, addressed to some friends; each of which I attached to an handkerchief, and at different periods afterwards cast out of the Car; and have since had the pleasure to know, that three of them were taken up at different places, and kindly forwarded, and received by those to whom they were addressed. . . . The extensive grounds of a Callico-Printer, covered with cloths of various colours, at my first observing it, appeared like a bed of tulips, which, when I remarked to M. Blanchard, he was struck with the same idea.

At about 3:20, the balloonists began to suffer from the cold, as did the dog. The men prepared to descend: "we untwisted both tubes of the Balloon, (through which it had been filled with gaz) and put them without-side of the Car, and opened the valve, to ease the Balloon, and to favour our descent.” But after five minutes, the temperature rose back into a comfortable range, and they decided to continue their journey. “We now refreshed ourselves with cold chicken, and drank a few glasses of wine to the health of our friends below us.” The balloon passed over Dartford and Crayford. Blanchard and Jeffries then decided that they had let out too much gas and might land in the river below. The doctor wrote, "We then threw out every thing except my instruments and our cloaths; and though this visibly checked our descent, yet it had no effect on our motion, in a right line for the River.” I must note that his account never mentions the little dog after this point.

The landing was rough:

At about 50 minutes past three, we cast out one of the anchors, or grapnels, and in two minutes after, the second, which as soon as it touched the surface of the earth (the cords by which they were attached to the net over the Balloon being 50 yards in length) checked us so far, that we struck the ground lightly, but rebounded; and ascending again, we opened the valve; but passing between the tops of some trees, they forced off, and carried away from the Car, our moulinet, with one of the oars or wings; indeed we met with such resistance, as to break off many of the twigs and berries, and to force some of them into my cloaths, pockets, &c. I caught hold of the limb of one of the trees, in hopes of stopping our motion, but was unable to do it; and was forced, after exerting my utmost efforts, to let it go. . . . As soon as we had passed the trees, the wind blowing fresh, our anchors were every minute taking the ground, so as to check us, and then giving away, so that we alternately fell and rose; when a man, by hard running, got hold of one of the cords of our anchors, but could not stop us: On which we opened the valve as far as it was possible, and kept it open until several persons coming up with us, and seizing hold of both the anchor cords, stopped our progress; and we alighted exactly at 59 minutes after three, in a marshy piece of ground, within a few yards of the River.

Legend says that a couple of years before some French farmers had attacked and destroyed a balloon that landed in their neighborhood, thinking it was a demon, but by this point ballooning had apparently been publicized enough that the English farmers knew what they had witnessed. The locals who had helped bring down the balloon were very excited, "asking thousands of questions." Jeffries found "a few bits of chicken, and morsels of bread" in the car; "I, at their urgent requests, divided it almost into atoms among them; every one being eager to get some of that food, which they had seen literally descend from the clouds.” Jeffries himself needed “a bowl of warm tea” to recover his equanimity, though his arms remained sore “for a day or two afterward.”

Blanchard and Jeffries soon began planning for a second, even more impressive voyage: the first aerial crossing of the English Channel. (Take off to Part 5.)

Dr. John Jeffries: physician, Loyalist, aeronaut, part 3

Part 1 of this series of postings introduced Dr. John Jeffries, who, despite his family ties to Boston's establishment, became a Loyalist. Part 2 described his frustrated attempts to lobby for a higher post in London. In Feb 1783, George III officially declared his war with the new U.S. of A. over, leaving Jeffries in London as a Loyalist exile, a doctor with, apparently, a steady practice but no way to fulfill his ambitions for something greater.

Then, in June, the Montgolfier brothers launched their first large balloon in Paris. A series of technological advances quickly followed: a flight with animal passengers in September, a flight with human passengers in November, the first human flight with a hydrogen balloon in December. A small, energetic, and egocentric Frenchman named Jean Pierre Blanchard (shown above) started to imagine ways that such balloons could be steered in flight. Already republican in his politics, Blanchard thought he would find more patrons outside France, so he went to England.

The first balloon flight in Britain was performed by Vincent Lunardi in September 1784. The 18th-Century Reading Room blog offers his own account. Dr. Jeffries was intrigued. Seeing himself as a man of science, he saw a flaw in all the previous aerial voyages. Jeffries felt that ballooning could “lead…to a full investigation of the nature and properties of the atmosphere," but that published accounts of aerial voyages so far showed that the balloonists'

principal attention was turned to the facility and safety of an ascent; to the prospects below them, in their elevated situation; to the effects which so sudden a change of situation and air, might have on them personally; and to the power of ascending at pleasure, and with safety.

He wanted to put aeronautics on a more scientific, less subjective footing.

Jeffries therefore approached Blanchard with a proposition: that two men should go up together, one attending to the balloon and the other to scientific instruments and observations. Blanchard, it became clear, hated to share any glory, but he needed a patron. He was a hydrogen balloonist, as opposed to a hot-air balloonist. With modern chemistry still in its infancy in the 1780s, scientists weren't sure what exactly distinguished these two forms of buoyancy. But it was clear that hydrogen balloons went higher and stayed up longer than the Montgolfiers' early hot-air balloons. It was also clear that launching a hydrogen balloon was terribly expensive: one needed large amount of sulphuric acid and iron filings to mix and release enough hydrogen gas. And the more men and equipment the balloon had to lift, the more hydrogen was necessary.

Blanchard therefore suggested a deal. As Jeffries later wrote:

I accordingly made application to M. Blanchard to indulge me with a feat with him in his next intended voyage; which indulgence I could not obtain of him, but in consideration of one hundred guineas presented him for that purpose.

The hundred guineas was a large sum, but not the full cost of the voyage. For more money, Blanchard planned to sell tickets to the launching.

The need for a large audience, however, produced another obstacle—crowds had torn up the spectator areas when other balloons didn't take off for reasons of bad weather, not enough gas, rips in the fabric, &c. As Jeffries described it:

The disorder and mischief occasioned by two unsuccessful attempts, and the damage thereby done to individuals in their property, had made every one who had grounds of their own, or at their disposal, suitable for such an exhibition, in or near the metropolis, resolve against granting the use of them, on almost any consideration; and more than four weeks were lost in fruitless solicitations for a proper place to ascend from. . . . these disappointments were heightened by reflections on the season of the year; the small portion of day-light, which could at best be afforded us; the variableness of the weather...

Time was running out for Blanchard and Jeffries.

Finally, the pair found a location at the Rhedarium Garden in London. They scheduled their ascent for Monday, 29 November, but that day proved “uncommonly tempestuous.” The next morning they tried again. “The operation of filling the Balloon was not begun until after eleven o’clock," which was the time Jeffries hoped the balloon would be full; "it was not until after two o’clock that we began to fasten the Car to the Balloon.” The men sent up a small balloon to gauge the direction of the wind—east southeast. At 2:34 PM, the balloon lifted the car over the railing of the inflation apparatus; men pulled it down to the launch area, and Blanchard and Jeffries climbed in.

Having loaded his equipment, Jeffries reported:

we attempted again to rise; but still with cords in the hands of people on the ground: But finding that we had too much ballast in proportion to the gaz in our Balloon, after alighting for a moment, on the pent-house of the stables, on the north side of the Rhedarium, and falling off towards the west end so near, as almost to touch the buildings, M. Blanchard threw out the remaining part of our sand ballast, on which we again rose; when, after striking against the top of a chimney with so much force, as to beat off the earthen tunnels on it, (which accident, I imagine was occasioned by the wind suddenly acting on the Balloon as it first arose above the Buildings, and before it had acquired a situation to be acted on equally as to its course, or its full velocity of ascent)—at 38 minutes after two, we rose above the reach of any further terrestrial obstructions.

At last Dr. John Jeffries was flying. (See Part 4 for whether he came down.)