A grand balloon ascent, Batty's, Thursday, July 1st, 1852 / / Earle.

Hot Air Baloons and Gas Baloons

Victorian Times London. Victoria was born May 24, 1819, Kensington Palace, London, United Kingdom, and was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death, January 22, 1901,

The Exposition des produits de l'industrie française (Exhibition of Products of French Industry) organized in Paris, France, from 1798 to 1849 impressed the British public so much so that under increasing public pressure the British government reluctantly set up a Royal Commission to investigate the idea of London Exhibition. National pride dictated that the exhibition must bigger and better than anything French could organize. A competition to design an exhibition building was won by the firm of Fox and Henderson, with plans based upon a design by Joseph Paxton and adapted from a glass and iron conservatory produced for the Duke of Devonshire’s Chatsworth House. The design of the impressive glass and iron conservatory or Crystal Palace was amended to accommodate the Hyde Park's large elm trees. The building was 1,850 feet (564 m) long, and 108 feet (33 m) high. Shortly after the exhibition, the whole structure was removed from Hyde Park site and re-erected at Sydenham, then a sleepy hamlet in the Kent countryside, now a multi-ethnic part of South East London. The building was destroyed by fire on the 30th November 1936. The Great Exhibition was opened by Queen Victoria on 1st May 1851. The opening of the Great Expedition happened to coincide with the great innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The Exhibition of 1851 ran from May to October and was visited by six million people. The event became one of the defining points of the nineteenth century. The exhibits included every marvel of the Victorian age, including pottery, porcelain, ironwork, furniture, perfumes, pianos, firearms, fabrics, steam hammers, hydraulic presses and even the odd house or two. Although the original aim of the world fair had been as a celebration of art in industry for the benefit of All Nations, it turned into a showcase of British manufacturing: more than half the 100,000 objects on display were from Britain and the British Empire.

The Tissandier brothers, Gaston Tissandier (1843-1899) and Albert (1839-1906) combine such gifts as balloonist, writer, and illustrator. While Gaston tested the limits of balloon ascension, Albert made drawings of natural phenomena in the upper atmosphere. Gaston studied chemistry and in 1864 became the head of the experimental laboratory of Union Nationales. He was also a teacher at Association Polytechnique. His interest in meteorology led him to take up aviation. His first trip in the air was conducted at Calais in 1868 together with Claude-Jules Dufour, where his balloon drifted out over the sea and was brought back by an air stream of opposite direction in a higher layer of air. In September 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, he managed to leave the besieged Paris by balloon. Gaston Tissandier reported his meteorological observations to the French Academy of Sciences. In 1873 he founded the weekly scientific magazine La Nature, which he edited until 1896, after which it was continued by others. As a team, the brothers developed a design for an electric-powered airship in 1885: In 1883, Tissandier fit a Siemens electric motor to an airship, thus creating the first electric-powered flight. Gaston's most adventurous air trip took place near Paris in April 1875. He and companions Joseph Crocé-Spinelli, journalist, and Théodore Henri Sivel, naval officer, were able to reach in a balloon the unheard-of altitude of 8,600 meters (28,000 feet). Both of his companions died from breathing the thin air. Tissandier survived but became deaf. The Library of Congress Tissandier Collection contains approximately 975 items documenting the early history of aeronautics with an emphasis on balloon flight in France and other European countries. The pictures, created by many different artists, span the years 1773 to 1910. The collection comprises images of flights the Tissandier brothers participated in as well as flights they observed between 1865 and 1885. Gaston Tissandier flew over enemy lines during the Siege of Paris in 1870, and Albert made drawings of several balloons that were used to carry passengers and supplies over enemy lines.