Ingenious

Engraving by Heath after Thomas Baldwin's drawing of the first published aerial view. His description: 'The spectator is...suspended above the centre of the view, looking down on the amphitheatre or white of the clouds, and seeing the city of Chester, as it appeared throu' the opening: which discovers the landscape below, limited by surrounding vapour, to something less than two miles in diameter. The breadth of the blue margin defines the apparent height of the spectator in the balloon (viz 4 miles) above the white floor of the clouds, as he hangs in the centre, and looks horizontally round, into the azure sky.' Illustration from 'Baldwin's 'Airopaidia: containing the narrative of a balloon excursion from Chester, the eighth of September, 1785' published in Chester in 1786.