Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Inflating Professor Lowe's Balloon

This is another picture of Professor Lowe's work in the Civil War. This photograph shows the activities associated with inflating his balloon. The picture was taken in Virginia.
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9 comments:

  1. Wow, does anyone know what portable power source he used to inflate the balloon?

    It isn't hot air, and I know early balloonists used city gas to inflate, but this is coming from a wagon.

    This guy was DEFINTELY the "real" Doc Brown!

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  2. I found the hydrogen supply more intriguing than the balloon in this photo and had the same question as SmartGirl. Found out they were "mobile hydrogen gas generators." The best description comes from wapedia.com - "Eventually hydrogen gas generators, a compact system of tanks and copper plumbing, were constructed which converted the combining of iron filings and sulfuric acid to hydrogen."

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  3. yawn....bring back the old time hotties.

    ;-P

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  4. I find this info about the hydrogen very interesting. Thank you guys. Chihuahua, take a siesta :-)

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  5. Love the topic this week! Thanks

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  6. Again, I can not help notice that the soldiers differ from the variety you would see today in terms of body-type; seem uniformly tall and slender. Probably due to agrarian life-styles, whereas the industrial era lifestyles lent to more portliness and squat builds. May also be the demographics at that time.

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  7. If you think, the technology in this picture seems thousand years old. Contemporary to the pyramids (I would like to ask a 10 years old with no specific history knowledge to look at this picture and tell how long ago he thinks it happened).

    Fascinating how fast things developed.

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  8. This is actually a more interesting photo than Monday's. Now we get to see how he got up there, not just the end result.

    Once again a big thanks to PJM for this glimpse into the past.

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  9. Professor Lowe's military balloon near Gaines Mill, Virginia. It was created in 1910.

    The photograph presents Professor Lowe standing to the right of balloon as it is being inflated.

    I read somewhere else it was the very first use of surveillance during war.

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