Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Balloon   Listen
noun
Balloon  n.  
1.
A bag made of silk or other light material, and filled with hydrogen gas or heated air, so as to rise and float in the atmosphere; especially, one with a car attached for aerial navigation.
2.
(Arch.) A ball or globe on the top of a pillar, church, etc., as at St. Paul's, in London. (R.)
3.
(Chem.) A round vessel, usually with a short neck, to hold or receive whatever is distilled; a glass vessel of a spherical form.
4.
(Pyrotechnics) A bomb or shell. (Obs.)
5.
A game played with a large inflated ball. (Obs.)
6.
(Engraving) The outline inclosing words represented as coming from the mouth of a pictured figure.
Air balloon, a balloon for aerial navigation.
Balloon frame (Carp.), a house frame constructed altogether of small timber.
Balloon net, a variety of woven lace in which the weft threads are twisted in a peculiar manner around the warp.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Balloon" Quotes from Famous Books



... make sure, and a little blue ball puffed out like a child's balloon, burst, and dissipated itself in a thin, trailing ribbon, which the wind caught and swept to nothing. At the same time something spatted into the trail ahead of him, sending up a little spurt of ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... I say, Billie, for you are light-headed as well as light-hearted—a sort o' human balloon, ready to go up like a rocket at any time—so that even an or'nary man like me weighs you down. Besides, Oke, he steers better than me and I shoot better than him. Also, I like the hardest work, so I always take ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... has been made of Emerson's mysticism. He was an intellectual rather than an emotional mystic, and withal a cautious one. He never let go the string of his balloon. He never threw over all his ballast of common sense so as to rise above an atmosphere in which a rational being could breathe. I found in his library William Law's edition of Jacob Behmen. There were all those wonderful diagrams over which the reader may have grown dizzy,—just ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... opponent's court. The other man would stand watching it, a little speck in the Heavens, growing gradually bigger and bigger as it neared the earth. Newcomers would chatter to him, thinking he had detected a balloon or an eagle. He would wave them aside, explain to them that he would talk to them later, after the arrival of the ball. It would fall with a thud at his feet, rise another twenty yards or so and again descend. When it was at the proper height he would hit it back over the ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... mouse doesn't go to sleep in the cat's cradle and scare poor pussy so her tail swells up like a balloon, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis

... feature of which was a miller's house and waterfall having the "exact appearance of water." More daring efforts were to come later, such as the allegorical transparency of the Prince of Wales leaning against a horse held by Britannia, a Submarine Cavern, a Hermit's Cottage, and balloon ascents. The most glorious of these attractions presented a sordid sight by daylight, but in the dim light of the countless lamps hung in the trees at night passed muster with the ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... Ocean and the Colorado Desert, infinitely diversified in minor particulars by the exceedingly broken character of the region—a jumble of bare mountains, fruitful foot-hills, and rich valleys. It would be only from a balloon that one could get an adequate idea ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... the aeronautical exploits of Montgolfier and Blanchard was also playfully satirised. Their first imitator in England, Vincenzo Lunardi, had made a successful ascent from Moorfields as recently as 1784, while in the following year Blanchard crossed the channel in a balloon and earned the sobriquet Don Quixote de la Manche. His grotesque appropriation of the motto "Sic itur ad astra" made him, at least, a fit object for Munchausen's gibes. In the Baron's visit to Gibraltar we have evidence that the anonymous writer, in common with the rest ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... youth now vanish along with the bonnet rouge and the jargon of the Terror. His bent had ever been for the material and practical: and now that faith in the Jacobinical creed was vanishing, it was more than ever desirable to grapple that errant balloon to substantial facts. Evidently, the Revolution must now trust to the clinging of the peasant proprietors to the recently confiscated lands of the Church and of the emigrant nobles. If all else was vain and transitory, here surely was a solid basis of material ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... of the harbour lay smooth as a sheet of tightly stretched gray silk. Overhead the sea-fog drifted gradually landward, descending, as it drifted, till the outlines of the City grew blurred and indistinct, resolving to a dim, vast mass, rugged with high-shouldered office buildings and bulging, balloon-like domes, confused and mysterious under the cloak of the fog. In the nearer foreground, along the lines of the wharves and docks, a wilderness of masts and spars of a tone just darker than the gray of the mist stood away from the ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... a knowledge of the theory of the aeroplane, helicopter, and ornithopter, and of the spherical and dirigible balloon. ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... 1870, was total for a little more than two minutes, and its track passed across the Mediterranean. M. Janssen, of whom mention has just been made, escaped in a balloon from then besieged Paris, taking his instruments with him, and made his way to Oran, in Algeria, in order to observe it; but his expectations were disappointed by cloudy weather. The expedition sent out from England had the misfortune to be shipwrecked off the ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... Truth has confess'd, And Zeal unresisted entempests your breast![343:2] Though some noble Lords may be wishing to sup, Your merit self-conscious, my Lord, keeps you up, 70 Unextinguish'd and swoln, as a balloon of paper Keeps aloft by the smoke of its own farthing taper. Ye SIXTEENS[343:3] of Scotland, your snuffs ye must trim; Your Geminies, fix'd stars of England! grow dim, And but for a form long-establish'd, no doubt 75 Twinkling faster and faster, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... I have a small laboratory in the abandoned mine," he explained, "where we used to manufacture liquid air for blasting. This balloon I made for our present purpose. It will just suffice to carry up our rope, and a small but practically unbreakable grapple of hardened gold. I calculate to send the grapple to the top of the precipice with the balloon, and when it has obtained a firm hold in the riven rock there ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss

... bet you you will, Mr. Bangs," she declared. "Anybody that's been through the kind of times you have, livin' along with critters that steal the shirt off your back, ain't goin' to let a blowed-up gas balloon like Raish Pulcifer stump you. My savin' ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... in order to undertake the government of the provinces and the organisation of the national armies. The circle of the besiegers was now too closely drawn for the ordinary means of travel to be possible. Gambetta passed over the German lines in a balloon, and reached Tours in safety, where he immediately threw his feeble colleagues into the background and concentrated all power in his own vigorous grasp. The effect of his presence was at once felt throughout France. There was an end of the disorders ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... Antarctic Circle. Not until 1838 was it established that Antarctica was indeed a continent and not just a group of islands. Various "firsts" were achieved in the early 20th century, including: 1902, first balloon flight (by British explorer Robert Falcon SCOTT); 1912, first to the South Pole (five Norwegian explorers under Roald AMUNDSEN); 1928, first fixed-wing aircraft flight (by Australian adventurer/explorer Sir Hubert WILKINS); 1929, first flight over the ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em, 'll go to work raisin' promiscoous Ned," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;— "Yes, the North," sez Colquitt, "Ef we Southerners all quit, Would go down like a busted balloon," sez he. ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... ez ther' is about sessiges: Folks wun't take a bond ez a basis to trade on, Without nosin' round to find out wut it's made on, An' the thought more an' more thru the public min' crosses Thet our Treshry hez gut 'mos' too many dead hosses. Wut's called credit, you see, is some like a balloon, Thet looks while it's up 'most ez harnsome 'z a moon, But once git a leak in 't an' wut looked so grand Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand. Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins, Where ther' ollus is critters about with long pins A-prickin' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... pushing back slightly from the table. "Have another fizz, girl, and by that time we'll be ready for a trip in my underground balloon. Waiter!" ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... chair-man said about The Young Person in Pink who had been hanging about the Park every morning for a week was that nowadays you couldn't really tell. He thought on the whole she was all right. The balloon-woman was certain that with boots like that she must be a 'ussy; but then she had refused to buy a balloon. As a matter of fact she couldn't, being broke to the world. And worse. For she had arrived at Victoria Station unable to remember who she was or where she came from, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various

... those tricks is to be played from the foot-lights upon a member of the audience the girl who does it is always careful to select that circular gentleman down front. Let her try to mix up confetti or a toy balloon with a tall skinny man and the police ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... met a very old, old woman who curtsied till her skirts looked like a balloon. She called him a little gentleman and said that he was so fine that he might go to the ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... the sea the less unique are our surroundings. Many of the villages in the northern Weald, beautiful as they are, might equally well be in Kent or Surrey: a visitor suddenly alighting in their midst, say from a balloon, would be puzzled to name the county he was in; but the Downs and their dependencies are essential Sussex. Hence a Sussex man in love with the Downs becomes less ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... 1783 the brothers Montgolfier ascended a mile above the earth in a balloon there was a thrill of excitement, as the spectators felt that the story of Daedalus had been taken from the world of romance into the world of fact. But, after all, the invention went only a little way in the direction ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... Mobile, to Chickenmaha, to Coney Island, to Ireland, to th' divvle, an' r-rush thim back again. Don't r-rush thim. Ordher Sampson to pick up th' cable at Lincoln Par-rk, an' run into th' bar-rn. Is th' balloon corpse r-ready? It is? Thin don't sind it up. Sind it up. Have th' Mulligan Gyards co-op'rate with Gomez, an' tell him to cut away his whiskers. They've got tangled in th' riggin'. We need yellow-fever ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne

... to you Mr. Richard Arnold, who is to accompany us to Russia to inspect the war-balloon offered to our Little Father the Tsar. Mr. Arnold, my niece, Fedora Darrel. There, now you ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... as I was for such an attempt, I could not keep my footing. When about half-way up, I looked ruefully round and saw steeps above and below covered with ice and snow and loose earth. I could not get back, and did not know how to get on. I felt like the man who went up in a balloon, and when a mile in the air wanted to be let out. My feelings were very like what Johnson describes at Hawkestone in his tour in Wales. 'He that mounts the precipices at —— wonders how he came thither, and doubts how he shall return; his walk is an adventure and his departure an escape. He ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... parts. I saw one land near Westcott's, and I had a hunch it was lighting for you. Then I thought no more about it until things happened that made it up to me to find you. I inquired around and about and found a big balloon had come this way, so I figured this was about ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... Russia says that on the night of September 14th the inhabitants of a little village saw a balloon which was believed to be that ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 48, October 7, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... McGee decided to explain, "but I was born in the States. When the war broke out, my brother, who was older by a few years, came over and joined the balloon corps. I was too young to enlist, but my parents were both dead and I came along with my brother, remaining in London until—" he hesitated and cleared his voice of a sudden huskiness, "until word came that ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke

... long time he was voiceless, and, having no paper balloon to float him, he went about in his own thoughts, quite like a common person. A year later, routing out the whole series of printed articles from one of his jackdaw hiding-places, he was inspired by an intense disdain, and burned them in the ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... I myself flew the biplane over to Westchester on the morrow, and explained the controls to Monsieur Power in an extended passenger flight. He was, it appeared, an amateur of the balloon, and accustomed to great heights. When I handed the machine over to him, with the engine throttled down so that he might try rolling practice on the ground, he waited until he was out of our reach, whipped the motor into ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... conceit on himsen as would lift a balloon, an' he wor so pleeased wi' his sham Rip he wor for tekking him to Mrs. DeSussa before she went away. But Mulvaney an' me stopped thot, knowin' Orth'ris's work, though niver so ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... hit was made by an English ship. I could see eight vessels, apparently all battleships, lying in line from the entrance up the strait. The ship furthest up appeared to be the Queen Elizabeth, and I think it was she that fired the shot which exploded the powder magazine at Chanak. A great balloon of white smoke sprang up in the midst of the magazine which leaped out from a fierce, red flame, and reached a great height. When the flame had disappeared the dense smoke continued to grow till it must have been a column hundreds of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... toy-books, was called "Chapters of Accidents, containing Caution and Instruction." Thrilling accounts of "Escapes from Danger" when robbing birds'-nests and hunting lions and tigers were intermingled with wise counsel and lessons to be gained from an "Upset Cart," or a "Balloon Excursion." With one incident the Philadelphia printer took the liberty of changing the title to "Cautions to Walkers on the Streets of Philadelphia." High Street, now Market Street, is represented in a picture ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... bewildered! As you know, I am rather proud of my descent from families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to nobility,—and as to my "rise in the world"—if I had risen, it would have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets. However, it was my cue to agree: ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... playmate hits you without meaning to do it?" 4. Gives similarities, two things. (2 to 4.) (Stanford addition.) Wood and coal; apple and peach; iron and silver; ship and automobile. 5. Definitions superior to use. (2 to 4.) Balloon; tiger; football; soldier. 6. Vocabulary, 20 words. (Stanford addition. For list of words used, see record booklet.) Al. 1. First six coins. (No error.) Al. 2. Dictation. ("See the little boy." Easily ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... a hoop. She had been wearing a hoop all winter in Edinburgh, but she was quite sure she would be the first "hooped lady" to appear in Kirkwall town. Thora might wear the bride veil, with its wreath of myrtle and rosemary, but she had a pleasant little laugh, as she mentally saw herself in the balloon of white and gold shot silk, walking majestically up the nave of St. Magnus. It was so long since hoops had been worn. None of the present generation of Kirkwall women could ever have seen a lady in a hoop, and behind the present generation ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Prince Hassan's Carpet, Green's Balloon, a Railway over the Sea. Hope nothing, and ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... scarce possible to talk of a paper kite, without thinking of that other and greater aerostatic contrivance—a balloon. ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... tales, to the Indian mind, seemed an insult to common sense. For some time he was treated merely with ridicule and contempt; but, when, resolutely continuing to recount his adventures, he told them about a balloon, and that he had seen white people, who, by attaching a great ball to a canoe, as he described it, could rise in it up to the clouds, and travel through the heavens, the medicine, or mystery men of his tribe pronounced him to be an impostor; and the multitude vociferously declaring ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... came the leathern tones of one unseen announcer, "one hour before the big show begins in the main tent we will give a grand free balloon ascension!" ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... had taken weeks of careful planning by members of MIT's Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. The device consisted of a weather balloon, a hydraulic ram powered by Freon gas to lift it out of the ground, and a vacuum-cleaner motor to inflate it. They made eight separate expeditions to Harvard Stadium between 1 and 5 A.M., locating an unused 110-volt circuit in the stadium and running buried wires from the stadium circuit to the 40-yard ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... reduced to a few floating shreds, which gave an air of vapory unsubstantiality to the houses on the quay, to the steam-boats of which only the paddle-wheels could be seen, and to the distant horizon, where the dome of the Invalides hovered like a gilded balloon, whose netting shed rays of light. The increasing warmth, the activity in the quarter indicated that noon was not far away and that it would soon be announced by the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... just like a map!" exclaimed Peter, as he knelt up at a window. "I'm certain if I was up in a balloon it would look like a map with all those ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... meet there were five flying machines,—three biplanes, a monoplane, and a dirigible balloon. All made good records, and the Rover boys became wildly enthusiastic over what ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... framed his plan of attack on the assumption that Lee's army was dispersed along the Rappahannock. His balloon had reported large Confederate bivouacs below Skinker's Neck, and he appears to have believed that Lee, alarmed by his demonstrations near Port Royal, had posted half his army in that neighbourhood. Utterly unsuspicious that a trap ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... a few of the peculiarities of the London multitude, when no riot, no execution, no murder, no balloon, disturbs the even current of their thoughts. These are the whimseys of the mass - the harmless follies by which they unconsciously endeavour to lighten the load of care which presses upon their existence. The ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... with vulgar pompousness, "to see that you recognize the rights of property and the claims of vested interests. And we trust," he added, "that Labour has learned a lesson it will not soon forget." Then he sat down with the majesty of a balloon descending. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... drove to the balloon station, at which the Imperial guest was expected. After a few minutes, a sound ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... frame, each revolving with the rapidity of an incipient cyclone and snapping every now and then the delicate white thread that was spun out like spiders' web from the rollers and the cylinders, making a balloon-like gown of cotton thread, which settled continuously around ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... an [3242]honour to our land, as well may witness our victories in France. Keelpins, tronks, quoits, pitching bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming, wasters, foils, football, balloon, quintain, &c., and many such, which are the common recreations of the country folks. Riding of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, horse races, wild-goose chases, which are the disports of greater men, and good in themselves, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... Americans might possess a desirable thunder-storm which should be observed hanging over Washington, and which we should annex by means of electrical communications transpiercing it in every direction, and a resident governor fixed at the centre in a balloon. France has gorged Kabylia, with the rest of Algeria, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new. He finds himself surrounded in the most touching manner ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Perhaps he had hoped that Hugh would excuse him altogether. He explained that this sixpence was not all, nor the chief part. He told that, when the whole school was on the heath, one Saturday, they had seen a balloon rising at a distance, and some boys began betting about what direction it would move in when it ceased to rise perpendicularly. The betting spread till the boys told him he must bet, or he would be the only one left out, and would look ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau

... tiny hands, wriggling its minute body, turning about like a little top, strutting and bending, while the soldiers—small almost from here as toys taken out of a box—assumed attitudes of deep attention as they leaned upon the card-table, stretching out their legs enveloped in balloon-like trousers. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... do in the way of a floral offering to his goddess. So he set about the supposedly hopeless task of inducing Alaska to part with one of her plants. Half an hour after entering the library he departed with a balloon shaped object in his arms. He was not too proud to be seen shuffling up the lane with his prize, a huge thing loosely done up in newspapers,—leaving behind him a completely dazzled Alaska who went about the place aimlessly folding and unfolding ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... people thought out the underlying principle of the law of flotation, and reduced it to the generalized statement that anything will float, the weight of which is less than that of the mass displaced by it, whether it be an iron ship floating in water, or a balloon floating in air. So long as we restrict ourselves to the mere recollection of observed facts, we shall make no progress; but by carefully considering why any force acted in the way it did, under the particular conditions observed, we arrive at a generalization ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... my soul, Ella, it is not so easy to remember one's motives of twenty years ago. I only know that when I used to grapple, silently and alone, with all the great projects I had in my mind, I had something like the feeling of a man who is starting on a balloon voyage. All through my sleepless nights I was inflating my giant balloon, and preparing to soar away ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen

... coloured powders. A high cushion was fastened at the top of the hair, and over that either a cap adorned with artificial flowers and feathers to such a height as sometimes rendered it somewhat difficult to preserve its equilibrium, or a balloon hat, a fabric of wire and tiffany, of immense circumference. The hat would require to be fixed on the head with long pins, and standing, trencherwise, quite flat and unbending in its full proportions. The crown ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... on Flight. The Invention of the Balloon. First Experiments in Gliders and Aeroplanes. The Wright Brothers and their Successors in Europe. The First Airships. The Beginnings of Aviation in England. The Inception and Development of Aircraft as Part of the Forces of the Crown: the Balloon Factory; the Air Battalion; the Royal ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... with an oath The dust in streets goes down, And clerks in counting-rooms observe, ''T was only a balloon.' ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... from Wheal Dooem, Jack, but if you were to go up in a balloon a few hundred yards above the spot where it stands, you might see 'em all on a very clear day, if your eyes were good. The fact is, that I regard this picture as a triumph of art, exhibiting powerfully ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... d'Alembert," Casanova assisted, at the old Louvre, in a session of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. "Seated beside the learned Franklin, I was a little surprised to hear Condorcet ask him if he believed that one could give various directions to an air balloon. This was the response: 'The matter is still in its infancy, so we must wait.' I was surprised. It is not believable that the great philosopher could ignore the fact that it would be impossible to give the machine any ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "Five Weeks in a Balloon" is, in a measure, a satire on modern books of African travel. So far as the geography, the inhabitants, the animals, and the features of the countries the travellers pass over are described, it is entirely accurate. ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... Duck's Bureau Drawer.—Merglitz, who has up till this time held his peace, now descends from a balloon and demands the release of Betty. It has been the will of Wotan that Merglitz and Betty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, but Zweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted a love-potion which ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... sunk deeply in between the roofs of houses; towers like toothpicks, like three-pronged forks, like pepper-casters, like factory chimneys, like limekilns, like a sailor's trousers hung up to dry, like bottles of fish-sauce, and like St. Paul's—a balloon turned topsy-turvy. There they stand, like giant spectral watchmen guarding the silent city, whose beating heart still murmurs in its sleep. At the hour of midnight they proclaim, with iron tongue, the advent of a New Year, mingling a song of joy ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Entire Horizon.—When we wish to correspond at a short distance, say two miles, and make signals visible from the entire horizon, the mirror, A, is put in place, so that it shall reflect the luminous fascicle vertically. The fascicle, at a distance of about fifty feet, meets a white balloon which it renders visible from every point in the horizon. The maneuver of the occultator brings the balloon out of darkness or plunges it thereinto again, and thus produces the signs necessary ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... to be 'Up in a balloon,'" continued Proteus (now looking rather like the Ancient Mariner,) "long and lean and brown, but letters written to the Times even from the utmost height lately attained by the French Aeronauts—to say nothing of the top of the tallest Lightning Conductor—would, I fear, be hot and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various

... consequentially connected with patriotism, it was immanent; not transitively associated by any links whatever, but immanently intertwisted, indwelling in the idea. Therefore it happened that a man, however heartsick of this tumid, bladdery delusion, although to him it was a balloon, by science punctured, lacerated, collapsing, trailed through ditch and mud under the rough handling and the fearful realities of life, yet he durst not avow his private feelings. That would have been even worse ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... 17th December 1870, a physicist who has left in the University of Paris a lasting name, M. d'Almeida, at that time Professor at the Lycee Henri IV. and later Inspector-General of Public Instruction, quitted Paris, then besieged, in a balloon, and descended in the midst of the German lines. He succeeded, after a perilous journey, in gaining Havre by way of Bordeaux and Lyons; and after procuring the necessary apparatus in England, he descended the Seine as far as Poissy, which he reached on the 14th ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... Never did believe all that stuff. Religious hokum, to keep the masses quiet. Don't know what to believe now. Take the roof. They say a hundred kharfads up; but how do we know? Maybe it's a thousand—or only ten. By Grat, I'd like to go up in a balloon, see for myself." ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer

... the most beautiful annual climbers: Crimson, and White, Cypress Vine; White, and Buff, Thunbergia; Scarlet Flowering Bean; Hyacinth Bean Loasa; Morning Glory; Crimson, and Spotted, Nasturtium; Balloon Vine; Sweet Pea; Tangier Pea; Lord Anson's Pea; Climbing Cobaea; Pink, and ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... day are not disfigured by the towering head-gear, the long waists and hoops against which Reynolds had to contend, nor by the greater variety of hideous fashions, including the no-waist, the tight clinging skirt, the enormous bows of hair, and the balloon or leg-of-mutton sleeves, which at various periods interfered with the highest efforts of Lawrence. The present dress differs slightly from that of the best ages; and Vandyke or Lely, if summoned to paint the fair ladies ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... o'th' Church is sed to be one Wang be Wang, one o'th' Empros o' China as com ower in a balloon an browt wi' him all his relations but his grandmuther. Th' natives at that toime wur a mack a wild; but i' mixing up wi' th' balloonites thay soin becum civilized and bigd th' Church at's studden fra that toime to nah, wi'th' exepshun o' one end, destroyed at ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... air balloon!" shouted Alphonse, starting up from the grass, where he had been lying on his back during all this confusion, listlessly staring up ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... her shoes on the right feet. Consequently, her dream book was very monotonous. The only thing worth mentioning in the way of dreams that Sara Ray ever achieved was when she dreamed that she went up in a balloon ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... see de big round moon Comin' up like a balloon, Dis nigger skips fur to kiss de lips Ob ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... miles of cliff which marks the northern limit of the Great Ice Barrier. Passing the extreme eastward position reached by Ross in 1842, they sailed on into an unknown world, and discovered a deep bay, called Balloon Bight, where the rounded snow-covered slopes undoubtedly were land and not, as heretofore, floating ice. Farther east, as they sailed, shallow soundings and gentle snow slopes gave place to steeper and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... some sort, there's no doubt about that," said the Captain, "so I guess the great problem has got solved at last. And yet it ain't a balloon, because it's coming against the wind, and it's nothing of the aeroplane sort neither, because it hasn't planes or kites or any fixings of that kind. Still it's made of something like metal and glass, and it must take a lot of keeping up. It's travelling ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... go down, sold several thousand dollars of Pan-Handle Preference (I think it was). I had no sooner made this venture than some fools in New York began to bull the market; Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of half an hour I saw my position compromised. Blood will tell, as my father said; and I stuck to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued selling that infernal stock, all afternoon it continued skying. I suppose I had come (a frail cockle-shell) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it supplies a solid basis to intellectual investigations, and, so to speak, an answer for all the moral sciences, to this saying of Roederer: "Politics is a field which has been traversed thus far only in a balloon; it is time to put foot ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... one was brave enough to venture to do so. To start out and sail away from land on this unknown water was to the people of that day as dangerous and foolhardy a journey as to try to cross the ocean in a balloon is to ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw

... hours later, a cheerful-looking boy might have been seen trudging toward one of the railway-stations. A new hat, brave in blue streamers, was on his head; a red balloon struggled to escape from one hand; a shabby carpet-bag, stuffed full, was in the other; and a pair of shiny shoes creaked briskly, as if the feet inside were going ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... Bunch and drive him out of the balloon business I made up my mind one day I'd run down to the Flatfish Factory and drag a few honest dollars ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh

... between Calais and Boulogne, except the little village of Wimille, which made some impression upon my mind, as being so much prettier and so much more village-like than any other through which we had passed, and near here perished the unfortunate aeronauts Pilatre and Romain, falling from their balloon when at a prodigious height from the ground and in sight of many spectators. They were buried in the churchyard, in which a monument has been erected commemorative of the event. About two miles from this hamlet Boulogne appears in sight, cheering the spectator by its gay and animated aspect, the ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... cried Tom, frantically, thrusting his hat in her face, in a wild delusion that he was offering his hand, for he was so upset by the sight of Elsie that he felt as if rapidly going up in an unmanageable balloon. ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head, An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em, 'll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned,' Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;— 'Yes, the North,' sez Colquitt, 70 'Ef we Southeners all quit, Would go down like a busted balloon,' sez he. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... luxury he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. And what should more directly lead to charitable thoughts?' But with the advent of prosperity a man becomes incapable of understanding how the less fortunate live. Stevenson likens that happy individual to a man going up in a balloon. 'He presently passes through a zone of clouds and after that merely earthly things are hidden from his gaze. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in admirable order and positively as good as new. He finds ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... necessary, has always appeared to me inhospitable, I told the man that if delivered in Paris, they should be received, and paid for. The bargain was made, and the jewels have already reached us. Of course I have asked no questions, and am ignorant whether they came by a balloon, in the luggage of an ambassador, or by the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... pointing skyward. He stared upwards, expecting a balloon at least. But it was only 'Keats' little rosy cloud', she explained. It was not her fault if he did not find the excursion ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... unknown country for the base of the mountain, Judge Wickersham's party unfortunately attacked the mountain by the Peters Glacier and demonstrated the impossibility of that approach, being stopped by the enormous ice-incrusted cliffs of the North Peak. Judge Wickersham used to say that only by a balloon or a flying-machine could the summit be reached; and, indeed, by no other means can the summit ever be reached from the north face. After a week spent in climbing, provisions began to run short and the party returned, descending the rushing, ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... The balloon men, the penny whistle and pop gun dealers frequent the upper streets, where they are apt to be seen by children. The lame soldier sets up his stand anywhere, and deals principally in shoe strings, neckties, or in books and papers that no one ever reads. Towards Christmas large booths for ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... record temperature and pressure. To each of these balloons a fine silk thread was attached, or rather the thread was attached to the little instrument it carried. When any strain was put on the thread it broke the thread connecting the small temperature and pressure instrument to the balloon, the former dropped on to the ice and was recovered by one of the volunteers, who followed the silk thread up until he came to the instrument where it had fallen. One required good eyesight for this work as for everything else down here, and I have never ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... in tents for?" asked the student as he pointed back to Red Owl, now considerably below them, and which presented a panorama of balloon-frame houses, mostly innocent of paint, with a sprinkling of tents pitched here and there among the trees; on lots not yet redeemed from virgin wildness, but which possessed the remarkable quality of "fetching" prices that would have done honor to ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... were passing along one of the interior corridors. The stateroom doors were all closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed our footsteps. Snap was in advance of me. His body suddenly rose in the air. He went like a balloon to the ceiling, struck it gently, and all in a heap came floating down and landed ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... characteristic triad in the first phase of the disease; less rapidly does meteorism appear. This depends upon whether the inflammation of the serosa quickly spreads or remains local. Peritoneal meteorism is peculiar. The abdomen is uniformly distended, balloon-like; the muscles as well as the rest of the abdominal walls are tense. It must be added, how ever, that in spite of the excruciating pain upon touch there is no sign of contraction of the abdominal muscles, ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... of the greenest specimens I ever saw in this country. He had on a pair of balloon pants and a Norfolk jacket, and was surrounded by a half-dozen baby trunks. His face was red-cheeked and aggressively clean, and his eye limpid as a child's. Most of those present thought that indicated childishness; but I could see that it was only ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... that the air could be navigated. He suggested a hollow globe of copper to be filled with "ethereal air or liquid fire," but he never tried to put his suggestion into practice. Father Vasson, a missionary at Canton, in a letter dated September 5, 1694, mentions a balloon that ascended on the occasion of the coronation of the Empress Fo-Kien in 1306, but he does not state where he ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... "In a balloon?" said Denny, whose tongue wouldn't keep still even though she was very much interested in ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth

... conversation. He entirely ignored the two young English painters, turning a blind eyeglass to their salutations, and continuing his remarks as if he were alone in the bosom of his family; and with every second word he ripped another stitch out of the air balloon of Desprez's vanity. By the time coffee was over the poor Doctor was as limp ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ship perceived this change in direction, she veered off her course closer to the wind, and almost immediately the boys could see the white flutter of some extra canvas being spread at her bows. As this new piece filled out, it proved to be a great balloon jib, which increased her sail area by nearly half. Her head came off the wind again and she went bowing along over the swells to the southward faster than one would have imagined possible. Bonnet had figured on crossing ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... freckled man reached the raft and climbed aboard. He lay down on his back and puffed. His bathing-dress spread about him like a dead balloon. The tall man came, snorted, shook his tangled locks and lay down by the ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... kindness which you shew by having me in your thoughts upon all occasions, will, I hope, always fill my heart with gratitude. Be pleased to return my thanks to Sir George Baker[1103], for the consideration which he has bestowed upon me. Is this the balloon that has been so long expected, this balloon to which I subscribed, but without payment[1104]? It is pity that philosophers have been disappointed, and shame that they have been cheated; but I know not well ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... wind. It is probable that an engine sufficiently strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive, would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a balloon that of a ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... usual with all his balloon topsails set, his sea-room limited only by the skein, while his aunt wound her yarn silently, and listened with a face expressive at once of deep interest and hope, mingled ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... me very kindly to Father Steffens and the Steeles, and will you tell Herr Walther we are only waiting for a balloon to visit the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... sent a shiver through him. Great, gorgeous galaxies! He had forgotten ... had Koa and the others? He turned so fast that he lost his balance and floated above the surface like a captive balloon. Santos, who had been standing nearby to help if requested, hooked a toe on the ground spike, caught him, and set him upright ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... in number, were led through divers passages and courts to the very front of the burning pile—blazing pile, we should say. There it stood before him, in all its solemn and sombre Eastern beauty—cupolas, minarets, domes, balloon-shaped spires, but the flames had seized a firm hold of the lower halls, and were bursting through the windows, adding a ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... good originally, and age had improved it. Used as he was to the appalling balloon juice sold in the drinking dens of the "Barbary coast" at San Francisco, or the public-houses of the docks, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... lady was indeed got up in a gorgeous style of dress, for she wore all the colors of the rainbow, without their blending, had flounces nearly to her waist, giving her the appearance of an half-inflated balloon; and she had made a very flower-basket of her head. In short, the lady had made a bold attempt to improve on all known styles of dress, and at the same time to show her contempt for what other people might call taste in such ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... nice thing to say to me, a man that would go up in a balloon and troll for hen-hawks, asking no questions, provided the state committee told me it would help in ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... or Potsdam, or Wilhelmshoehe; or with a long stride finds himself on the docks at Hamburg or Bremen, or beside the Kiel Canal, or in Kiel harbor facing a fleet of war-ships; or he lifts his eyes into the air to see a dirigible balloon returning from a voyage of two hundred and fifty miles toward London over the North Sea, and the Emperor is there. Is it the palace hidden in its shrubbery in the country; is it the clean, broad streets and decorations of the capital; is it a discussion of domestic politics, or a question of ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... of aggregation of two cloud bodies occurs, changes of temperature are induced in the masses which are mixed together. If the temperature resulting from this association of cloud masses is an average increase, the cloud may become lighter, and in the manner of a balloon move upward. Each of the motes in the cloud with its charge of vapour may be compared with the ballast of the balloon; if they are warmed, they send forth a part of their load of condensed water again to the state of invisible vapour. Rising to ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... in every joint, rocked like a captive balloon, the unhappy passengers were hurled from one side of the vehicle to the other, flung into one another's laps, and occasionally, when some uncommon obstacle sought to check the flying coach, their heads collided ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... its air free to escape, writhed and turned, then fell over on its side. It was like an inflated balloon, turned loose to fly around a room. Air jetted from it with terrific velocity, so that the tank was, for the period while its air lasted, ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... environment, all far larger than those of the little town. The island was perhaps a mile in length. Between it and the mainland a boat was coming toward us. It was a dark blob of hull on the shining water, and above it a queerly shaped circular sail was puffed out, like a balloon parachute, by the wind. ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... invention The human race the true inventor Obscure origin of many inventions Inventions born before their time "Nothing new under the sun" The power of steam known to the ancients Passage from Roger Bacon Old inventions revived Printing Atmospheric locomotion The balloon The reaping machine Tunnels Gunpowder Ancient firearms The steam gun The Congreve rocket Coal-gas Hydropathy Anaesthetic agents The Daguerreotype anticipated The electric telegraph not new Forgotten inventors Disputed inventions Simultaneous ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... so. It was then arranged for him to take a ride. With his flowing robe he was assisted to mount one of these little cars like as if it were a donkey. The whistle was blown, the steam turned on and away he went around the circle and it created as much excitement as a balloon once did at a circus ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... thing very different, as to the evidence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in the womb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all Jerusalem at least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... a melancholy, flaccid man with a saffron-colored visage that looked like a half-deflated balloon, a martyr to prickly heat, anaemia, and monotony, peered up from under the moving punkah, to inquire of his subordinate ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... naval gun as it spoke to the enemy, and such a sight as their shooting the world has possibly never witnessed. Not a shell was wasted; cool as if on the decks of a pleasure yacht our tars moved through the fight, obeying orders with smiling alacrity. Whenever the signal came from the balloon above us that the enemy were moving behind their lines, the sailors sent a message from England into their midst, and the name of the messenger was Destruction; and when, at 1.30 p.m. of Tuesday, we drew off to ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... his thoughts he drove that day to the village of Vorontsovo to see the great balloon Leppich was constructing to destroy the foe, and a trial balloon that was to go up next day. The balloon was not yet ready, but Pierre learned that it was being constructed by the Emperor's desire. The Emperor had written to Count Rostopchin ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... soar, not creep, and longed for some expedient, in the failure of natural wings, by which he could lift himself away from the conventional and commonplace. By beating out the substance of Pindar very thin, he contrived a kind of balloon which, tumid with gas, did certainly mount a little, into the clouds, if not above them, though sure to come suddenly down with a bump. His odes, indeed, are an alternation of upward jerks and concussions, and smack more of Chapelain than of the Theban, but his prose is very agreeable,—Montaigne ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... garden, a shaggy, lean figure leapt up in it, almost black against the bronze and scarlet of the west, and, flinging out a kind of hook or anchor, caught on to the green apple-tree just under the wall; and from that fixed holding ground the ship swung in the red tempest like a captive balloon. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... the affairs of the Roman Empire, of which we have several credible histories. Now, there are two modes of investigation open to us, the dogmatic and the inductive. We may take either. We may construct for ourselves, from the most flimsy suppositions, a metaphysical balloon, inflated with self-conceit into the rotundity of a cosmogony, according to which, in our opinion, the world should have been made, and we may paint it over with the figures of the various animals and noble savages which ought to have sprung up ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... or read of anywhere, and which, as it is rather of importance, I forward to you in hopes that some of your correspondents may be able to throw some light upon it. When my father was in the Artillery Ground at the ascension of Lunardi's balloon, he remarked to several persons present, "This is no novelty to me; I remember well, when I was at school in Ringwood [about the year 1757], an apothecary in that town that used to let off balloons (he had no other name, I suppose, to give them) ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various

... they who can do what they are doing— No— There, now, I heard that some kind of bombs and balloons have been invented. Well, one ought to go up in such a balloon and sprinkle bombs down on them as if they were bugs, until they are all exterminated— Yes. Because—" he was going to continue, but, flushing all over, he began coughing worse than before, and a stream of blood rushed ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... man, addressing a bow-legged friend, "are them legs of yourn natural or artificial?" "Artificial, me lad. I went up in a balloon, and walked back." ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... then, was Savareen? Had he sunk into the bowels of the earth, or gone up, black mare and all, in a balloon? Of course it was all nonsense about the landlord having passed him on the road without seeing or hearing anything of him. But what other explanation did the circumstances admit of? At any rate, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... so impressive that they stood motionless, watching the flaming tree and the inky heavens beyond. Suddenly in the sky they saw a figure that resembled a vast balloon slightly inclined to one side, and spinning on ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... not recall his face, but it struck me directly afterwards. I saw him go into a house. He has grown a beard, and he is evidently living as a quiet and respected British resident. It was a capital idea of his, for he is as safe here as he would be if he were up in a balloon. I intended to look him up when I got back again into Paris, but you see circumstances ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... during all those years and at last rose again in the form of a sequel to Erewhon. In Erewhon Revisited Mr. Higgs returns to find that the Erewhonians now believe in him as a god in consequence of the supposed miracle of his going up in a balloon to induce his heavenly father to send the rain. Mr. Higgs and the reader know that there was no miracle in the case, but Butler wanted to show that whether it was a miracle or not did not signify provided that the people believed it to ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... they will have most room who stay below. I can assure you, however, upon my own experience, that this way of travelling is very delightful. I dreamt, a night or two since, that I drove myself through the upper regions in a balloon and pair, with the greatest ease and security. Having finished the tour I intended, I made a short turn, and, with one flourish of my whip, descended; my horses prancing and curvetting with an infinite share of spirit, but without the least danger, either to me or my vehicle. The time, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... mass of the men were middle-aged—territorials, with the light-blue long-coat, good for all weathers and the sharp night, and the peaked cap. Over the top of the dune where the soldiers sat an observation balloon was suspended in a cloudless blue sky, like a huge yellow caterpillar. Beyond the pasteboard stage, high on a western dune, two sentries stood with their bayonets touched by sunlight. To the south rose a monument to the territorial dead. To the north an aeroplane ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... in Paris during the siege was probably mental, suffering from the want of news; but by the middle of November the balloon and pigeon postal service was organized. Balloons were manufactured in Paris, and sent out whenever the wind was favorable. It was found necessary, however, to send them off by night, lest they should be fired into by the Germans. A balloon generally carried one or ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... say that you looked peaked when you had sore throat," she announced, "then there's somethin' the matter with your mind or your eyesight, one or t'other. You peaked? Why, your face was swelled up like a young one's balloon Fourth of July Day. And as for bein' pale! My soul! I give you my word I couldn't scurcely tell where your neck left off and the strip of red flannel you made me tie ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Margaret went. She was very much inclined to play some pranks when she was dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make her rich white silk balloon out into a cheese, to retreat backwards from her mother as if she were the queen; but when she found that these freaks of hers were regarded as interruptions to the serious business, and as such annoyed her mother, she became ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... want. In October Wilhelm established his headquarters at Versailles, part of the French Government going to Tours. Gambetta, the new minister, made every effort to secure help for France. He departed from Paris in a balloon, and carrier pigeons were sent in the same way to take news to the provinces and bring back offers of assistance. Strange expedients for food had been proposed already, and all supplies were very ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... up like a fire balloon just because I said that, will you? A man in your condition—why, confound you, you ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... observation balloon high in the air above its motor trolley Jerry observers reported on the shattered remnant still holding out. He pressed home his advantage upon the tired troops ... rifles grew hot. The few Normans were again ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... small outfit of gumption. That poor creature in there is no more drunk than I am. He's been drinking—yes, drinking like a fish; but it wasn't able to make him drunk. He's past being drunk; he's grief-crazy. It's a case of 'woman.' Some girl has made a fool of him, and decoyed him up in a balloon, and let him drop. He's ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... do!' exclaimed the Nihilist. 'But I daren't throw it away: it would make such a noise in the street. I'll tie it on to the next balloon that comes by empty. They'll assassinate me; but I don't care: I have peace in ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... he is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him; and now condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by dynamite! The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope; he saw the Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled against the railing. It is ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... mouth and nostrils. Some one, by and by, felt something warm and wet and rough against his icy cheek and was grateful for the feeling. Some one was reading to me from a book which described the sensations of a man lifted up and carried in a broken balloon that could only ride a foot from the ground, bumping and jarring horribly, and I was that man, in some strange way, and at the same time I was the illustrations that accompanied the tale. I read the story myself finally, aloud and very shrilly, as that unfortunate ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... boy coolly, 'I'm goin' ter tie it to Poll's balloon, an' let go of the string, an' then it'll go straight to heaven,' and, with the letter reposing in his cheek, he began ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black

... hovered on the summit a moment, looking out on such an expanse of gigantic waves as I had never pictured to myself, the distance lost in the driving spray; and, while I looked, the wave passed from under us, and we went down and down with a rapidity of descent which was almost like falling from a balloon. Then, after another moment's rest in the valley, came the shuddering half apprehension of the next wave as it rose above us, threatening again, and then, after again soaring aloft, down again into the driving of the spray; the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... we would feed the trout in their blue tank if we did not see them suffering with surfeit, and hanging in motionless misery amid the clear water under a cloud of bread crumbs. We are such devotees of the special attractions offered from time to time that we do not miss a single balloon ascension or pyrotechnic display. In fact, it happened to me one summer that I studied so earnestly and so closely the countenance of the lady who went up (in trunk-hose), in order to make out just what were the emotions of a lady who went ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the keen, eccentric character which took to balloons just after the Montgolfiers, and fell with his balloon into the North Sea, wrote his Treatise on the use of such instruments in War, and was never happy unless he was seeing or doing something—preferably under arms. And in every sentence also there is that curious directness of statement which is of such advantage ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... strolled all over the ground with her, and perhaps taken her into one or two side-shows, where there were negro minstrels or the Wild Australian Children, he went and sat in a buggy with her, and they talked, and waited for the horse-race, or balloon-ascension, or wire-walking, which was the especial attraction of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... they called him "Uncle" because of his shock of white hair. The Highland division, under his command, fought many battles and gained great honor, even from the enemy, who feared them and called the kilted men "the ladies from hell." It was to them the Germans sent their message in a small balloon during the retreat from the Somme: "Poor old 51st. Still ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... elevation of nearly eleven thousand feet, the observer on its summit at night finds himself, as it were, lost in the midst of the sky. But for the black flanks of the great cone on which he stands he might fancy himself to be in a balloon. On the occasion to which I refer the world beneath was virtually invisible in the moonless night. The blaze of the constellations overhead was astonishingly brilliant, yet amid all their magnificence my attention was immediately drawn to a great tapering light that sprang from the place on the ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... stood up, however, he found he was much weaker than he had imagined; but sat up in an armchair, all the evening. The next day he remained up all day and, three days after, he felt strong enough to go to the governor with Ralph, to ask for their promised places in the next balloon. ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... The wind had died; it seemed as though the waters were moving with the wind, as fast as the wind; the yawl was keeping pace with it, even as a floating balloon drifts in a storm, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... movement. And always, on the southern horizon, those clear lines of British trenches, whence sprang on July 1st, 1916, the irresistible attack on Montauban and Mametz. Suddenly, over the desolate ground to the west, we see a man hovering in mid-air, descending on a parachute from a captive balloon that seems to have suffered mishap. The small wavering object comes slowly down; we cannot see the landing; but it ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... jocularly to be called a 'nightie'; but our younger leaders go appropriately clad, to the eye, in exquisitely fitting, ready-to-wear clothes. So, too, does the Correspondence-School graduate, rising like an escaped balloon from his once precarious place among the untrained workers to the comfortable security of general manager. Here and there, an echo of the past, persists the pretence that men are superior to any but practical considerations ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... it was all right, don't you know, but I was losing several pounds a day over the business. I was getting so light that I felt that, when the old man kicked me, I should just soar up to the ceiling like an air balloon. ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... of ball-play, such as balloon-ball, stow-ball, &c.; but of these it is hardly needful for me to speak, as they are only varieties of those games which I have already described. The history of football has been narrated in a preceding chapter. You will be able to trace from the descriptions of these old sports ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... last, seen an air-balloon; just as I once did see a tiny review, by passing one accidentally on Hounslow-heath. I was going last night to Lady Onslow at Richmond, and over Mr. Cambridge's field I saw a bundle in the air not bigger than the moon,(525) and she herself could not have descended with more composure ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... therefore, he set out for Chelsea. The party was held in a large room on the ground-floor, which was already crowded with people when Shelton entered. They stood or sat about in groups with smiles fixed on their lips, and the light from balloon-like lamps fell in patches on their heads and hands and shoulders. Someone had just finished rendering on the piano a composition of his own. An expert could at once have picked out from amongst the applauding ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... vaincu." BISMARCK has told me that the Emperor WILLIAM, then at Versailles, in the first flush of triumph at touch on his brow of the Imperial diadem, hearing of the event through the capturing of a balloon despatched with the news to dolorous ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... day of trial came. The public were gathered, impatient and scornful as the pig-headed public are apt to be. In the open area a long cylindrical balloon, in shape like a Bologna sausage, swayed above the machine, from which, like some enormous bird caught in a net, it tried to free itself. A heavy rope held it fast ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... far as I can make out it's a dirigible balloon that has been blown out to sea. They tried to give me their position, and as near as I can comprehend their message, they are between us and the shore somewhere within a radius ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... no news from the armies, near or remote. But there was some alarm in the upper portion of the city about 9 P.M. last night, from a signal seen (appended to a balloon) just over the western horizon. It was stationary for ten minutes, a blood-red light, seen through a hazy atmosphere. I thought it was Mars, but my eldest daughter, a better astronomer than I, said it was neither the time nor place for ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones



Words linked to "Balloon" :   balloon bomb, balloon seat, plaything, lighter-than-air craft, sausage balloon, expand, hot-air balloon, balloon sail, barrage balloon, balloon vine, kite balloon, pilot balloon, aviate, pilot, ripcord, balloonist, toy



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com