The Great Balloon Escape

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France and Prussia War

2:25In 1870, France and the powerful German state of Prussia got into a war. And Prussia walloped France. In mid-September, just two months after the war began, the Prussian military had already surrounded Paris. Then they laid siege to the 2.5 million people there. No one was allowed in or out. Except for one person. Of those 2.5 million people, the Prussian army offered one of them free passage to leave. Astronomer Jules Janssen.

2:57Janssen wanted to observe a solar eclipse in Algeria that December. And the Prussians magnanimously put science above the fray of politics and told Janssen that he was free to travel. So you can imagine the Prussians' shock when Janssen told them to kick rocks. After months of suffering in solidarity with his countrymen, he refused to accept the easy way out. Instead, with typical French flair, he informed the Prussians that he would take to the air instead. He would soar over the siege in a hot air balloon.

3:31This rejection enraged the Prussians. Through gritted teeth, they wished Janssen luck. Then they warned him that they planned to shoot his balloon out of the sky and shoot him as a spy when he landed. But Janssen was not about to sit home and let this important eclipse pass him by. One way or the other, he was determined to escape Paris.

Jules Janssen Story

3:52From the Science History Institute, this is Sam Keen and the Disappearing Spoon, a topsy-turvy, sciency history podcast, where footnotes become the real story.

4:16Jules Janssen sported a full beard and a waterfall of gray curls off his bald plate. His determination to observe the eclipse in Algeria had its roots in two things. Childhood adversity and a need to follow up on some observations from another eclipse two years earlier. When Janssen was a baby, a nursemaid dropped him and broke his foot. This left him with a permanent limp. But this handicap fueled a fierce resolve to succeed. He adored science as a child. But with the musician for a father,

4:47he couldn't afford to attend college. So he worked at a bank by day and built an observation tower on his roof to learn astronomy at night. Years of drudgery followed as he tried making a name for himself. Elite French scientists mostly snubbed him. But in 1864, at age 40, he landed a spot on a scientific expedition to Peru. Upon arrival, he nearly died of dysentery. Undeterred, he made more trips abroad and did pioneering work on observing the atmospheres of Mars and the moon.

5:18At last, the French government rewarded him by sending him to observe a solar eclipse in eastern India in August 1868, two years before he vowed to escape Paris by hot air balloon. You might remember this eclipse from an earlier episode of this podcast. It was the one that killed the king of Siam. Janssen had better luck. During the eclipse, he planned to observe the sun with an instrument called a spectroscope. Spectroscopes separate light into individual colors at different wavelengths. The spectroscope was normally used

5:49to study elements in the lab. Scientists would heat up individual elements until they were glowing hot. At this point, each element produced a characteristic pattern of thin, colored lines. It was like a colored barcode. For example, hydrogen produced a band of red light at 656 nanometers. It also produced an aqua line and two purple lines at other wavelengths. As another example, sodium produced a bright yellow doublet of lines spaced very close together. You probably recognize the color

6:20from yellow sodium street lamps. Astronomers used spectroscopes, too. By determining the barcode of each element in the lab, then examining the barcode lines produced by sunlight, astronomers could determine what elements made up the sun. That's a pretty impressive achievement from 92 million miles away. During the 1868 eclipse, Janssen wanted to observe the corona of the sun, its outer envelope. The glare of the sun normally overwhelms the corona, but the moon dims the sun's body

6:52during an eclipse while leaving the corona visible. Everything was set then. The moon slipped into place that morning, and during those seven precious minutes of darkness, Janssen hurriedly analyzed different bands of light with his spectroscope. Right away, he saw the barcode for hydrogen, the red, aqua, and purple lines, then the blazing yellow doublet from sodium. But upon closer inspection, Janssen noticed something odd about the sodium lines. In the lab, that doublet line appeared around 589 nanometers.

7:24This line appeared just below 588 nanometers. Now, the one nanometer difference between 588 and 589 is pretty tiny, less than one half of one ten millionth of an inch. But the difference bothered Janssen. He, in fact, got so distracted by it that he neglected to do his other observations, and the eclipse passed. And even afterward, that bright yellow line kept picking at his mind all day. Had his instrument been off kilter? He didn't think so.

7:55But then what element was that? Janssen had also been surprised at how blazingly bright that yellow line was. In fact, it was so bright, he wondered whether he could see it outside of an eclipse, even with the full sun shining. He decided it would be difficult, but doable. He vowed to himself, I will see that line again. Unfortunately, clouds swept over India the day after the eclipse and covered the sun. So Janssen spent the day reconfiguring his equipment to block out all other wavelengths except for around 588 nanometers.

8:28The next morning, he tried again, focusing his instrument on the corona. Sure enough, he saw a slight blaze of yellow at 588. Janssen spent the next month refining his observations. Then he mailed a paper off to the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. He didn't know what he had discovered and didn't dare to speculate too much. But he sensed it was big, a discovery that could make his career, make all of those decades of drudgery worth it. Unfortunately, intercontinental mail was not exactly a well-oiled machine

8:58in 1868. It took his letter two months to reach Paris. And during that time, another scientist scooped him. The English astronomer Norman Lockyer spotted that same yellow line independently in October 1868, well after the eclipse. But just like Janssen, Lockyer had discovered a way to isolate certain wavelengths of light and study the sun's corona during the daytime. And unlike Janssen, Lockyer never shied away from leaping to big conclusions. For instance, Lockyer was the first person

9:29to propose that the pyramids in Egypt were not just tombs, but astronomical instruments. So as soon as Lockyer saw that bright yellow line, he declared that he had discovered a new extraterrestrial element. He named it after the sun, helium. And to stake his claim on helium, Lockyer dashed off a paper to the leading scientific body in the world, the French Academy of Sciences.

9:52Now, accounts differ on what happened next. But according to the most dramatic version, Lockyer and Janssen's paper arrived on the exact same day at the academy. Had there been even a slightly longer delay on either side, one man might have lost credit forever. Regardless, the two men became instant rivals over helium. Other complications soon arose. Although other astronomers could not deny the existence of the bright yellow line, some rejected the idea that it arose from a new element. They argued that it was much more likely

10:23that the line represented a common element behaving strangely

Helium Discovery

10:26in the sun's extreme heat. To their minds, helium was bogus. This, then, was the backdrop for the December 1870 eclipse in Algeria. Janssen needed to travel there to finish the work he had neglected in 1868. He also wanted to shore up his claim for helium. After all, it was far easier to observe that bold yellow line during an eclipse. Unfortunately, he had not reckoned on Otto von Bismarck. In July 1870, the wily Prussian chancellor

10:58goaded France into invading Prussia. Bismarck's military then proceeded to rout the French army. In a humiliating development, the Prussians even captured the French emperor, Napoleon III. Bismarck then marched on Paris, surrounding it in just five weeks. Some historians call it the original Blitzkrieg. People trapped in Paris remember trembling at the booming artillery in the distance and the smell of burning smoke filling the air. Bismarck's men quickly blocked every road, train, and river into Paris.

11:28This cut off all incoming supplies. Within weeks, people there were chopping down trees on beloved boulevards for firewood. When food ran low, they took to eating pets, then vermin, then the animals in the zoo. Diaries speak of rat pâté. Victor Hugo compared his stomach to Noah's Ark. Equally bad, Bismarck's men cut the telegraph lines out of Paris. As a result, the rest of the world had no idea what Paris was suffering, and the French had no way

11:58to communicate with the outside world and rally support. With no way to escape the city, the French government got desperate and creative. They began sending up hot air balloons. It's time to bust out the tongs and enjoy USTA-certified tender steaks, juicy burgers, and more from Omaha Steaks. And you can get 50% off site-wide at OmahaSteaks.com. Plus, you get an extra

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14:21Most balloons escaping Paris carried a few passengers plus sacks of mail and a cage of passenger pigeons. City workers filled the canopies with gas intended for their street lamps. They sacrificed their reputation as the city of light for the greater good. Always stylish, the French gave their balloons dashing names. One was Liberty, another Deliverance. They also honored several scientists by naming balloons after them. Archimedes, Kepler, Newton. Now, balloons normally take off gently,

14:52gaining altitude only gradually. These commando balloon runs out of Paris were not like that. They left as high as possible as quickly as possible in order to dodge the fearsome Prussian artillery outside the city. Prussian soldiers took pot shots anyway and they sometimes scored hits. One escapee from Paris was Lyon Gambetta, the minister of the interior and a future prime minister. He suffered a wound to his hand while fleeing and counted himself lucky that that was all. After his escape, Gambetta set up a French government

15:23in exile in the city of Tours. And before long, that government in exile began sending messages back into Paris using micro-photography. French engineers had developed a way to drastically shrink the size of text and capture it on film. They could fit 3,000 messages in an area just half the size of a modern post-it note. These messages were rolled up and slipped inside a goose quill. The quill was then tied with silk thread to a passenger pigeon, which flew back to Paris upon being released.

15:53The exiled government managed to send out 2.5 million messages this way, although many did not reach their destination. The pigeons were often shot down. Some were killed by falcons that the Prussian officers trained and sent aloft. Some simply died from cold as the winter set in. And all the while, the Prussians continued to shoot down outgoing balloons. Even after the balloons cleared the siege lines, cavalrymen on horseback would pursue them like a fox hunt. Given that the cargo often included messages

16:24for the exiled French government, the Prussians treated the French balloonists as spies and executed them. No quarter, no mercy was given. Despite these risks, as the eclipse approached, astronomer Jules Janssen wanted to make a balloon flight of his own. He simply had to reach Algeria. Then, out of nowhere, the Prussians sent word that he didn't have to risk his life after all. In the spirit of fair play, Norman Lockyer, his rival over credit for helium, had brokered an agreement of safe passage for Janssen

16:55to leave the city. And incredibly, the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck agreed. It's not clear why Bismarck did so. Was he a secret star buff himself? More likely, he saw a chance to win some cheap, easy points in the international community. Sure, let the astronomer go. Why not?

Janssen's Balloon Flight

17:14Regardless,

Janssen's Balloon Flight

17:14Janssen snubbed him. Janssen was a patriot and he vowed to take his chances in the air. Bismarck, in turn, vowed to bring the astronomer down to Earth, promising that any stars Janssen saw in his balloon flight would be his last. They would treat the scientist as a dirty spy. By December, the French had already launched dozens of balloons. Most were stitched together by dressmakers in the suddenly-idled train station in central Paris. The balloon envelopes were awfully patchy,

17:45made of cheap calico, and designed to last for one flight only. The matter of Janssen's co-pilot only complicated things. The co-pilot was a sailor and he had exactly as much flying experience as Janssen did, 0.0 hours between them. Nevertheless, early on December 2nd, Janssen limped up to the basket of his balloon, La Volta. He climbed in and checked to make sure that the astronomical equipment that he had packed was secure. Then, at 6 a.m., he turned to the men holding the balloon

18:16down with ropes and ordered them to let go. As they shot upward in the dark, Janssen could see the white light of dawn on the horizon, translucent and pure. Beneath him, silent orange fires burned, tiny volcanoes erupting across Paris. As he later wrote, it was a stark reminder of a lower world with its appetites, passions, violence, and misery. Within minutes, the silence was broken by the rifles of Prussian soldiers, whose shots created their own tiny explosions of orange below.

18:46Every crack could mean death. The Prussians only had to get lucky once. Janssen and his co-pilot needed to dodge every last bullet. Thankfully, the gusting dawn winds soon pushed their balloon beyond their adversaries. For the first time in days, the two men relaxed. They had beaten the siege. But as they drifted farther, they realized that the dawn winds were not letting up. If anything, they were increasing, buffeting the basket and pushing them faster than expected. Eventually, they could see the Atlantic Ocean looming.

19:18They began a desperate attempt to drop altitude before being swept to sea. Finally, after five hours and 225 miles, they crashed down into a field just short of the ocean. They were immediately surrounded by farmers who peppered them with questions about Paris. The farmers then served the famished aeronauts their first hearty meal in months, a lunch of roast chicken, butter, and eggs.

19:43Janssen rested for a few days, then boarded a train for Tours, where the exiled French government was. There, he relayed a secret message to the escaped minister, Leon Gambetta. Janssen had been acting as a spy after all. He then raced off to Algeria. At this point, I would love to tell you that Janssen's quest ended happily, with him spotting that brilliant yellow line in Algeria and confirming the reality of helium. But life is not so tidy. After enduring months of siege and escaping in the most dramatic

20:13way possible, Janssen arrived in Algeria to find the skies overcast. As one historian said, he had been shut behind a cloud curtain even more impervious than the Prussian lines. There would be no observations, no yellow lines. It's enough to make you groan. Such a lofty escape, such a deflating finale. But Janssen took solace in one thing, that Norman Lockyer, observing the eclipse in Sicily, suffered the same fate of cloudy skies. Today we know

20:44that that blazing yellow line in sunlight does in fact represent helium, the second most common element in the sun. Janssen and Lockyer now share credit for discovering it, and it remains the only element first discovered on another celestial body. How fitting, then, that the man who first spied it had once taken to the skies himself in pursuit of scientific glory.

21:12This is the Disappearing Spoon podcast, brought to you by the Science History Institute. Be sure to check out their in-depth science history podcast, Distillations. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts, or on their website, distillations.org. You can find more incredible stories in my books, or at samkeen.com. You can also book me as a speaker there for your school or event. If you like this podcast,

21:43please spread the word and support it at patreon.com slash disappearing spoon. You can also get bonus episodes and signed books at Patreon. This episode was written by me, Sam Keen. It was produced by Mariel Carr, Rigoberto Hernandez, and Sarah Kaplan. Our sound design, scoring, and mixing is by Roe Home Productions. Roe Home's creative director is Alex Lewis. John Myers is

22:14Roe Home's executive producer. Thanks for listening.

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22:57Sleep Number, to a good life's sleep.

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23:42Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's try it. Try it.

23:48Go ahead.