Gay-Lussac et Biot

“[T]he greatest extent of the earth’s surface which has ever been seen at once by man, was that exposed to the view of MM. Biot and Gay-Lussac, in their celebrated aeronautic expedition to the enormous height of 5,000 feet; or rather less than five miles.”

— Herschel, Sir John. A Treatise on Astronomy. 1836, pp. 27–28.   

 

Gay-Lussac et Biot à 4.000 mètres de hauteur (1804). Paris: Romanet & cie., imp. edit., [between 1890 and 1900]. Sheet of 10 uncut cards, individually captioned and numbered; issued as “Collection 476,” “2e série. [No. 5]”; Tissandier collection. Wikimedia.

Note the anchor extending at lower left like a devil’s tail and recall that “a horny substance of suspicious nature was occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of [Hans Phaall’s] car...”. Alas, the tale predates the (1870-90?) tail.

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jean-Baptiste Biot in their balloon on 24 August 1804. From Figuier, Louis. Les Merveilles de la Science. Vol. 2, Paris, 1867–70, p. 537.

 

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Lane, engraver. “An Advertisement for the Panorama, Leicester Square, London: Showing the Battle of Trafalgar.” After H. A. Barker, 1806. Coloured engraving.