Towards the end of August, 1884, the public were startled by the news from Paris that the problem of steering balloons had at last been solved. A balloon was said to have ascended at Meudon, near Paris, traversed a certain distance under complete control, and finally to have returned to its starting point.

Since then, however, only one or two unsuccessful experiments are reported to have taken place, and the invention, which began with such a nourish of trumpets, has already been almost forgotten. Thinking it might interest the members of this Society to know what was actually done,I procured a copy of the report presented by the inventors to the Académie des Sciénces. I also obtained from one or two other sources all the information I could about the experiments, and have written in the following pages, as briefly as possible, an account of what actually took place.