Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Random Rants, Notes and Articles No.2 . . .

1849 - Grand Balloon Ascent - An advertisement published within The Principality newspaper for the Grand Balloon Ascent  from Cardiff on the 9th July by Mr. Green. The Balloon was named 'Rainbow'. - The Principality [1224] [361] 29th June 1849.

. . . . . From all the facts of the case, therefore, we think it clear that the balloon struck the water within the limits of Sand Bay, possibly near the island of Birnbeck, and that it was about half-past ten, and not at eight, that the unfortunate aeronaut met his death. The statements which have appeared in reference to the finding of the body are deemed by the press by no means satisfactory. A paragraph has gone the round of the papers stating that the body of Mr. Green was picked up "on the Flat-house sands, a shoal in the centre of the Bristol Channel." We have never before heard of the existence of a shoal of that name in the Bristol Channel, and the paragraph is evidently quite a mis-statement." - The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian Glamorgan Monmouth and Brecon Gazette [156] [361] 4th August 1849.

1873 - The Invention of the Circular Ship - The credit of inventing the circular ship is disputed with Mr. Reed, late Chief Constructor of the Navy, by Mr. W. Jones, a working man who lives at Penarth, near Cardiff. Mr. Jones says he submitted a model and drawings to the Admiralty nine years ago, and has never got any satisfaction for them. He now sees, he says, that the Russians have built a vessel of the very mould and model of his invention. Iron says that this ship is perfectly circular, and is driven through the water by six screw propellers. So far as hardness is concerned, nothing could be more perfect. The propellers disposed around the ship - it would be useless to talk of stem, or stern, or beam - afford unlimited power of locomotion ; ahead, astern, or spinning round like a top, the vessel is equally at home. In a seaway the behaviour of a circular ship is to be peculiar, but for buoyancy difficult to surpass. -  Public Opinion [1225] [499] 27th September 1873.