h* 
15 
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, 
13 
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.