Plan for an Observatory Balloon – Antique Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Step back in time with Plan for an Observatory Balloon, an antique engraving rich in period detail. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. It makes a striking addition to a living room, study or office, and a thoughtful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Plan for an Observatory Balloon
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A wood engraving printed in Mechanics Magazine in 1834 proposes a balloon built for scientific observation rather than travel or spectacle. The record notes it appeared on page 215 of volume 4, so readers encountered it as one plate among the technical articles that made up the journal's mechanical and engineering content. In the early 1830s, Britain and France were treating balloon ascents as a way to gather data on the upper atmosphere, including temperature, pressure and wind, and plans like this one reflected a hope that aerial craft could serve the sciences. The record is marked as unverified, so the exact design details should be checked against the magazine itself.
| Created / published | 1834 |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : wood engraving. |
| Notes | Illus. in: Mechanics Magazine, v. 4, 1834, p. 215. This record contains unverified, old data from caption card. Caption card tracings: Periodicals; Mechanics; Balloons; Shelf. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 935 × 1,536 px · prints to 3 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-131568 |
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