His death cast a gloom over the many aeronautic enthusiasts of France, England and America. But his splendid pioneer exploits had borne their fruit in a permanent and growing interest in the navigation of the air. The science of aeronautics marched on, and new and important schemes were invented for conquering the skies.
Why does a balloon rise in the atmosphere?--is the very natural question we are apt to ask as we read the story of these early balloon experiments. The Montgolfier brothers themselves could probably not have answered it, for they claimed that some marvelous secret properties existed in "Montgolfier smoke." Stephen Montgolfier seems to have had the idea of "holding a cloud captive in a bag," since he had observed that clouds rise in the air.
The real explanation can best be understood by a simple experiment. Throw a stone into a pool of water and it will sink, because it is "heavier than water": that is, it weighs more in proportion to its volume than the same quantity of water weighs. But throw into the same pool a piece of cork and it will rise, because it is lighter in proportion to its volume than water. This truth was long ago expressed as a law by the old Greek philosopher Archimedes, who said: "_Every body immersed in a liquid loses part of its weight, or is acted upon by an upward force equal to the weight of the liquid it displaces._" In the case of the cork, the weight of the water it displaces is greater than the weight of the cork, and consequently the upward force acting upon it is sufficient to lift it to the surface of the pool; but with the stone it is different: the water it displaces weighs _less_ than the stone, and therefore the upward force acting upon it is not sufficient to prevent it from sinking.
Now all this applies just as well to a body in the atmosphere as it does to the body immersed in water. The air in this case corresponds to the liquid. Therefore any object placed in the air which weighs less in proportion to its volume than the atmosphere, is bound to rise. Every object we see about us, including ourselves, which is not fastened down to earth, would, if it were not "heavier than air," go flying off toward the skies.