I then took
opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired situation east of
Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty gallons each,
and one of a larger size; six tinned ware tubes, three inches in
diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in length; a quantity of a
particular metallic substance, or semi-metal, which I shall not
name, and a dozen demijohns of a very common acid. The gas to be
formed from these latter materials is a gas never yet generated by any
other person than myself- or at least never applied to any similar
purpose. The secret I would make no difficulty in disclosing, but that
it of right belongs to a citizen of Nantz, in France, by whom it was
conditionally communicated to myself. The same individual submitted to
me, without being at all aware of my intentions, a method of
constructing balloons from the membrane of a certain animal, through
which substance any escape of gas was nearly an impossibility. I found
it, however, altogether too expensive, and was not sure, upon the
whole, whether cambric muslin with a coating of gum caoutchouc, was
not equally as good.
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