The Proposed Balloon Car of 1859

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post      The Atlas of Dead Ideas series

Harper's Weekly published an account of a proposed mountain tramway for Mount Rhigi, In Switzerland, almost two years and two weeks before the beginning of the U.S. Civil War.  The author of the report seemed not to hope so much that this would be the inauguration of land air-ships, but that  it would be "an important step toward the final perfection of a [flying] air-ship".

If nothing else the engraving of the perspective of the tram car is precise, and light, and lovely.

[Source: Harper's Weekly, April 30, 1859.]