Five Weeks in a Balloon
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| Five Weeks in a Balloon | |
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| Author | Jules Verne |
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| Original title | Cinq semaines en ballon |
| Illustrator | Edouard Riou |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Series | Voyages Extraordinaires #1 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure novel |
| Publisher | Pierre-Jules Hetzel |
| Publication date | 1863 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen (French: Cinq semaines en ballon) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne.
It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets.
Public interest in fanciful tales of African exploration was at its height, and the book was an instant hit; it made Verne financially independent and got him a contract with Jules Hetzel's publishing house, which put out several dozen more works of his for over forty years afterward.
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[edit] Plot summary
A scholar, Samuel Ferguson, accompanied by his manservant Joe and his friend Richard "Dick" Kennedy, sets out to travel across the African continent - still not fully explored - with the help of a hot-air balloon filled with hydrogen. He has invented a mechanism that, by eliminating the need to release gas or throw ballast overboard to control his altitude, allows very long trips to be taken. This voyage is meant to link together the voyages of Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke in East Africa with those of Heinrich Barth in the regions of the Sahara and Chad. The trip begins in Zanzibar on the east coast, and passes across Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Agadez, Timbuktu, Djenné and Ségou to St Louis in modern day Senegal on the west coast. The book describes the unknown interior of Africa near modern day Central African Republic as a desert, when it is actually savanna.
A good deal of the initial exploration is to focus on the finding of the source of the Nile, an event that occurs in chapter 18 (out of 43). The second leg is to link up the other explorers.
There are numerous scenes of adventure, composed of either a conflict with a native or a conflict with the environment. Some examples include:
- Rescuing of a missionary from a tribe that was preparing to sacrifice him.
- Running out of water while stranded, windless, "over" the Sahara.
- An attack on the balloon by condors, leading to a dramatic action as Joe leaps out of the balloon.
- The actions taken to rescue Joe later.
- Narrowly escaping the remnants of a militant army as the balloon dwindles to nothingness with the loss of air.
In all these adventures, the protagonists overcome by continued perseverance more than anything else. The novel is filled with coincidental moments where trouble is avoided because wind catches up at just the right time, or the characters look in just the right direction. There are frequent references to a higher power watching out for them, as tidy of an explanation as any.
The balloon itself ultimately fails before the end, but makes it far enough across to get the protagonists to friendly lands, and eventually back to England, therefore succeeding in the expedition. The story abruptly ends after the African trip, with only a brief synopsis of what follows.
[edit] Inconsistent Scientific/Technological Reference
The description of the apparatus used to heat the gas in the balloon is deeply flawed. Jules Verne states that it uses a powerful electric battery to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burns resulting hydrogen in a blow-pipe. He also says that the apparatus weighs 700 pounds (including the battery) and it is able to process 25 gallons of water. This is physically impossible. Even using state-of-the-art 21st century batteries (e.g. lithium-ion batteries) and assuming zero losses, one needs over 4000 pounds of batteries to electrolyze that much water. This number should be increased by at least a factor of five if authentic mid-19th century batteries are to be used. However it is possible that technological advances will continue to reduce the size of batteries.
Though the novel goes into great detail with much of the calculations involving the lift power of the hydrogen balloon, and how to obtain the proper amount of volume through changes in temperature; there are gaps in the logic. The balloon rises up when heated, and lowers as it is allowed to cool. This pattern is used as numerous plot points and is shown to be a somewhat quick process of cooling. At night, however, there is little mention of them maintaining the temperature through the night. Another gap in the scientific logic is the lack of reference to atmospheric temperature on the balloon itself, though the temperature is referenced as affecting the heating coil.
In Chapter 26, it says the doctor takes the balloon up to five miles. Later, in Chapter 29, in order to get over Mount Mendif, the doctor "by means of a temperature increased to one hundred and eighty degrees, gave the balloon a fresh ascensional force of nearly sixteen hundred pounds, and it went up to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet" which is noted as being "the greatest height attained during the journey." If this is to imply that the doctor went eight thousand feet above Mount Mendif, at a height greater than five miles; Jules Verne would have greatly underestimated the drop in temperature and how much heat would have been required to keep the balloon at that height for any length of time.
At the time when the book was first written, lands to the north and northwest of Lake Victoria were still poorly known to Europeans. Jules Verne makes a few mistakes here, such as placing the source of the Nile river at 2°40′N ( instead of 0°45′N ); claiming that this source is just over 90 miles from of Gondokoro ( the actual distance is closer to 300 miles ); not mentioning Lake Albert at all ( it was not discovered by Europeans until after the publication of the book ). Much of the geography described further in the book is completely fictional. For example, coordinates given for the "desert oasis" in chapter 27 correspond to a location in a savanna region of southern Chad, less than twenty miles from a big river.
[edit] Similarities to Later Novels
Five Weeks has a handful of similarities to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. There is the same sort of conjecture from current scientific ideas and what Verne puts forth as the actual truth (though Five Weeks is far more successful, assuming there is any attempt at accuracy with Journey). The party of three characters is similarly divided into the Doctor, the doubtful companion who initially balks at the journey, and the servant who is quite able. In both novels, Purdy rifles are referenced. In both novels, there is an episode of despair categorized by thirst.
Also, neither novel deals directly with the French, but with (generally positive) stereotypes of other countries.
[edit] Film adaptations
- 1962 - Five Weeks in a Balloon, USA, directed by Irwin Allen and starring Red Buttons, Fabian, Barbara Eden, Cedric Hardwicke, Peter Lorre, Richard Haydn, Barbara Luna (see Five Weeks in a Balloon at the Internet Movie Database)
- 1975 - Viaje Fantástico en Globo, Mexico, directed by René Cardona Jr and starring Hugo Stiglitz (see Viaje Fantástico en Globo at the Internet Movie Database)
[edit] External links
"Five Weeks in a Balloon" on Wikisource.- Five Weeks in a Balloon, available at Project Gutenberg.
- Cinq semaines en ballon, available at Project Gutenberg. (French)
