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Hat courtesy of the Houghton Library. Photograph by Jim Harrison
The first hot-air balloon trip across the English Channel began buoyantly. “We rose slowly and majestically from the Cliff,” wrote John Jeffries, A.B. 1763. A “beautiful assembly” cheered on the Boston-born medical doctor and his more expert partner, French inventor and balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard (who had hoped to leave Jeffries behind, despite his funding of the expedition).
But floating technology in 1785 wasn’t what it is today. Fifty minutes into the January trip, the balloon began to descend and the two tossed off a couple sacks of ballast to lighten their load. Forty minutes later, the balloon sank again. “We immediately threw out all the little things we had with us,” Jeffries wrote. “Biscuits, apples, &c, and after that one of our oars or wings; but still descending, we cast away the other wing.” The situation grew more desperate. “Still approaching the sea,” he recalled, “we bega