h*
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Le Geant - "The Ill-fated Monster", "An Absurd Scheme" (as refer
red to by the Paris Press) was built for Nadar by Eugene Godard in 1863.
Its balloon contained over 200,000 cu. ft. of gas, beneath which was sus
pended a monstrous, 2-storied basket capable of carrying twelve passen
gers (Figure 7). Its first ascent--over Paris on 4 October 1863--soon
landed near Meaux after a routine flight. The second flight, two weeks
later, ended disastrously in one of the most publicized accidents of the
century. Mistaking a cloud bank for the sea, the pilot brought it down
in a high wind near Hanover, after a 400-mile journey. The unfortunate
passengers were dragged along with the gondola, as it crashed through
the countryside, demolishing everything in its path. Bruises among them
were many and painful, but, miraculously, none were fatal. The public,
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as might be suspected, soon became tired of such business....
Undaunted, Nadar made many aerial photographic expeditions, and in
1868, succeeded in viewing Paris as few Parisians had seen it before.
Unfortunately, he was unable to attain sufficiently regular results to
undertake his "pet project"--the land survey. The photographic process
at that time was not yet equal to the task of aerial photography. A
balloon, even when moored at the end of a line, was constantly in motion,
so that the photographer was forced to open and close his shutter quickly
between oscillations of the basket. Slow collodion emulsions just
weren’t suited for such conditions. Although Nadar proved that a photo
graph could be made from a balloon, with pictures such as the one he
took of the Arch of Triumph (Figure 8), it was a random proposition at
best, and could only be accomplished under ideal weather conditions.