Another valiant English leader in aërostation was James Glaisher, member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. As one of a committee of twelve appointed by that body in 1861, to explore the higher strata of the atmosphere by means of the balloon, he volunteered his services as an observer, when no other capable man could offer to do so. With a professional aëronaut, Mr. Coxwell, and a new balloon specially constructed for the work, cubing 90,000 feet, he made eleven ascensions for the society, four from Wolverhampton, seven from Woolwich. Incidentally he made seventeen other ascents of various altitude; not at the expense of the committee, but as a scientific passenger in public balloon ascents advertised beforehand.
The objects of the enterprise were first to study the physical conditions of the atmosphere; secondly to study the effect of the higher regions upon the passengers themselves, and some pigeons, which they carried along; thirdly to make some observations in acoustics and magnetism, particularly to determine the period of oscillation of a magnet at various altitudes. The specific study of the atmosphere itself was to comprise observations at all altitudes, of the temperature of the air, its pressure, and percentage of moisture; observations of the velocity and direction of the wind, the constitution of the clouds, their height, density and depth, the constitution and electrical properties of the air. They were also to collect samples of the air at different elevations, which later might be examined in the laboratory. Thus the voyages were systematically planned for scientific research, and were the first thorough attempts in England, though similar efforts had been made previously in France. It may be added that Glaisher’s observations were the most important made during the first century of aëronautics, and may be found fully detailed by that hardy investigator himself in the British Association Reports for 1862-66.
Mr. Glaisher’s most interesting voyage of that memorable series occurred on September 5, 1862. Starting from Wolverhampton at three minutes after one o’clock, they soared swiftly upward, passing through a cloud eleven hundred feet thick and emerging in a glorious field of sunlight with an amethystine sky above and a boundless sea of vapor beneath; a sea of rolling hills and mountain chains, with great snow-white masses steaming up from their surface. They had left the noisy bustle of earth in the comfortable temperature of 59°; in three quarters of an hour, they were five miles aloft in a deadly silent atmosphere, two degrees below zero, and approaching one third its usual density, the balloon neck white with hoar frost, the men gasping for breath. Here the observations became increasingly interesting but immensely more difficult. They are graphically told in the following extract from Mr. Glaisher’s classical report: