From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Five Weeks in a Balloon
Author	Jules Verne
Original title	Cinq semaines en ballon
Translator	William Lackland
Illustrator	Édouard Riou and Henri de Montaut
Country	France
Language	French
Series	The Extraordinary Voyages #1
Genre(s)	Adventure novel
Publisher	Pierre-Jules Hetzel
Publication date	1863
Published in English	1869
Media type	Print (Hardback)
ISBN	N/A
Followed by	The Adventures of Captain Hatteras

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.

Plot summary

A scholar, Dr. 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.

Map of the trip described in the book from the east to the west coast of Africa.

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 hydrogen.

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 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.

Themes of the novel

The novel has several themes and motifs central to European exploration: scientific achievement, the otherworldliness of the region explored, and the question of how much shared humanity there is between the explorers and the natives. The balloon is a straight allegory of scientific achievement overcoming the wild, as well as overcoming the limitations of the Western world. Most of the Africans are contrasted as being superstitious and quick to worship any object cast down from the balloon, though Verne does not generalize this to all religion. The treatment of animals is in line with the image of the Great White Hunter. This is most obvious by Dick's statement, upon seeing a herd of elephants, "Oh, what magnificent elephants! Is there no way to get a little shooting?" These aspects are both tied into the explorers being above, quite literally in this novel, the region they are traveling across, and Verne makes them worthy of their status through their technological achievements.

As one scene where the explorers confuse baboons for black men illustrates, Africa is approached as an alien place. The explorers do not, and maybe cannot, fully understand the people they are interacting with(or, as the case may be, avoiding). Only later in the novel do they comment on the similarities between themselves and the people they have flown over, when they hold that the Africans' ways of war are not one whit worse than white men's, only filthier. In most scenes, neither the Africans nor the explorers show much compassion for the other.

In Chapter 16, the Doctor equates Africa to the "Last Machine", which will serve as the place of human growth after the Americas are dry. His depiction is of an Africa tamed and cultivated over years to come.

Inconsistent scientific/technological reference

The description of the apparatus used to heat the hydrogen 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.^[1] This number should be increased by at least a factor of five if authentic mid-19th century batteries are to be used. It would have been far more realistic simply to electrolyze the water up front and to load a tank of compressed hydrogen onto the balloon (electrolysis of that quantity of water produces less than 25 pounds of hydrogen).

Further, it would have been more efficient to use the energy contained in the battery to heat the gas directly. Electrolysis of water is not 100% efficient. So some of the energy contained in the battery is wasted and the heat generated by burning the obtained hydrogen is less than the heat that could have been obtained by simply using a resistance connected to the battery. In fact, Verne implies that the described device is a perpetual motion machine, since he implies that greater energy can be obtained by electrolysis than could have been obtained from the battery directly: if this were true, then the obtained hydrogen could be used to boil water to create steam to power an electrical generator to create more electricity for the battery. This may have been a deliberate joke by Verne.

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.

And it would be very dangerous to light a fire in the nacelle under a balloon filled with hydrogen.

Further, in Chapter 41, the load carried is progressively reduced in order to allow the balloon to rise higher and higher. But in fact a single load reduction would have been sufficient, because at that point the lift of the balloon would have exceeded the weight and it would have continued to rise until the volume of gas was reduced. (The density of air decreases with increasing altitude, thus reducing the lift at constant balloon volume, but the balloon would expand proportionately, due to decreasing air pressue, thus maintaining constant total lift.)

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 inaccurate predictions 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.

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.

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)

Notes

External links

• Works related to Five Weeks in a Balloon at Wikisource
• Five Weeks in a Balloon at Project Gutenberg
• Cinq semaines en ballon at Project Gutenberg (French)

From Wikisource

Contents

• CHAPTER FIRST.

The End of a much-applauded Speech.--The Presentation of Dr. Samuel Ferguson. --Excelsior.--Full-length Portrait of the Doctor.--A Fatalist convinced. --A Dinner at the Travellers' Club.--Several Toasts for the Occasion

• CHAPTER SECOND.

The Article in the Daily Telegraph.--War between the Scientific Journals.-- Mr. Petermann backs his Friend Dr. Ferguson.--Reply of the Savant Koner. --Bets made.--Sundry Propositions offered to the Doctor

• CHAPTER THIRD.

The Doctor's Friend.--The Origin of their Friendship.--Dick Kennedy at London. --An unexpected but not very consoling Proposal.--A Proverb by no means cheering.--A few Names from the African Martyrology.--The Advantages of a Balloon.--Dr. Ferguson's Secret

• CHAPTER FOURTH.

African Explorations.--Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Werne, Brun-Rollet, Penney, Andrea, Debono, Miani, Guillaume Lejean, Brace, Krapf and Rebmann, Maizan, Roscher, Burton and Speke

• CHAPTER FIFTH.

Kennedy's Dreams.--Articles and Pronouns in the Plural.--Dick's Insinuations. --A Promenade over the Map of Africa.--What is contained between two Points of the Compass.--Expeditions now on foot.--Speke and Grant.--Krapf, De Decken, and De Heuglin

• CHAPTER SIXTH.

A Servant--match him!--He can see the Satellites of Jupiter.--Dick and Joe hard at it.--Doubt and Faith.--The Weighing Ceremony.--Joe and Wellington. --He gets a Half-crown

• CHAPTER SEVENTH.

Geometrical Details.--Calculation of the Capacity of the Balloon.--The Double Receptacle.--The Covering.--The Car.--The Mysterious Apparatus.--The Provisions and Stores.--The Final Summing up

• CHAPTER EIGHTH.

Joe's Importance.--The Commander of the Resolute.--Kennedy's Arsenal. --Mutual Amenities.--The Farewell Dinner.--Departure on the 21st of February.-- The Doctor's Scientific Sessions.--Duveyrier.--Livingstone.--Details of the Aerial Voyage.--Kennedy silenced

• CHAPTER NINTH.

They double the Cape.--The Forecastle.--A Course of Cosmography by Professor Joe.--Concerning the Method of guiding Balloons.--How to seek out Atmospheric Currents.--Eureka

• CHAPTER TENTH.

Former Experiments.--The Doctor's Five Receptacles.--The Gas Cylinder.-- The Calorifere.--The System of Manoeuvring.--Success certain

• CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

The Arrival at Zanzibar.--The English Consul.--Ill-will of the Inhabitants.--The Island of Koumbeni.--The Rain-Makers.--Inflation of the Balloon.--Departure on the 18th of April.--The last Good-by.--The Victoria

• CHAPTER TWELFTH.

Crossing the Strait.--The Mrima.--Dick's Remark and Joe's Proposition.--A Recipe for Coffee-making.--The Uzaramo.--The Unfortunate Maizan.-- Mount Duthumi.--The Doctor's Cards.--Night under a Nopal

• CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

Change of Weather.--Kennedy has the Fever.--The Doctor's Medicine.--Travels on Land.--The Basin of Imenge.--Mount Rubeho.--Six Thousand Feet Elevation.--A Halt in the Daytime

• CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

The Forest of Gum-Trees.--The Blue Antelope.--The Rallying-Signal.--An Unexpected Attack.--The Kanyeme.--A Night in the Open Air.--The Mabunguru.--Jihoue-la-Mkoa.--A Supply of Water.--Arrival at Kazeh

• CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

Kazeh.--The Noisy Market-place.--The Appearance of the Balloon.--The Wangaga. --The Sons of the Moon.--The Doctor's Walk.--The Population of the Place.--The Royal Tembe.--The Sultan's Wives.--A Royal Drunken-Bout.-- Joe an Object of Worship.--How they Dance in the Moon.--A Reaction.-- Two Moons in one Sky.--The Instability of Divine Honors

• CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.

Symptoms of a Storm.--The Country of the Moon.--The Future of the African Continent.--The Last Machine of all.--A View of the Country at Sunset.-- Flora and Fauna.--The Tempest.--The Zone of Fire.--The Starry Heavens.

• CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

The Mountains of the Moon.--An Ocean of Venture.--They cast Anchor.--The Towing Elephant.--A Running Fire.--Death of the Monster.--The Field Oven.--A Meal on the Grass.--A Night on the Ground

• CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

The Karagwah.--Lake Ukereoue.--A Night on an Island.--The Equator. --Crossing the Lake.--The Cascades.--A View of the Country.--The Sources of the Nile.--The Island of Benga.--The Signature of Andrea Debono.--The Flag with the Arms of England

• CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

The Nile.--The Trembling Mountain.--A Remembrance of the Country.--The Narratives of the Arabs.--The Nyam-Nyams.--Joe's Shrewd Cogitations.-- The Balloon runs the Gantlet.--Aerostatic Ascensions.--Madame Blanchard.

• CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

The Celestial Bottle.--The Fig-Palms.--The Mammoth Trees.--The Tree of War. --The Winged Team.--Two Native Tribes in Battle.--A Massacre.--An Intervention from above

• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

Strange Sounds.--A Night Attack.--Kennedy and Joe in the Tree.--Two Shots. --"Help! help!"--Reply in French.--The Morning.--The Missionary.--The Plan of Rescue

• CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.

The Jet of Light.--The Missionary.--The Rescue in a Ray of Electricity.--A Lazarist Priest.--But little Hope.--The Doctor's Care.--A Life of Self-Denial. --Passing a Volcano

• CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.

Joe in a Fit of Rage.--The Death of a Good Man.--The Night of watching by the Body.--Barrenness and Drought.--The Burial.--The Quartz Rocks.--Joe's Hallucinations.--A Precious Ballast.--A Survey of the Gold-bearing Mountains. --The Beginning of Joe's Despair

• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.

The Wind dies away.--The Vicinity of the Desert.--The Mistake in the WaterSupply.--The Nights of the Equator.--Dr. Ferguson's Anxieties. --The Situation flatly stated.--Energetic Replies of Kennedy and Joe. --One Night more

• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH.

A Little Philosophy.--A Cloud on the Horizon.--In the Midst of a Fog.--The Strange Balloon.--An Exact View of the Victoria.--The Palm-Trees.--Traces of a Caravan.--The Well in the Midst of the Desert

• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.

One Hundred and Thirteen Degrees.--The Doctor's Reflections.--A Desperate Search.--The Cylinder goes out.--One Hundred and Twenty-two Degrees.-- Contemplation of the Desert.--A Night Walk.--Solitude.--Debility.--Joe's Prospects.--He gives himself One Day more

• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH.

Terrific Heat.--Hallucinations.--The Last Drops of Water.--Nights of Despair. --An Attempt at Suicide.--The Simoom.--The Oasis.--The Lion and Lioness.

• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH.

An Evening of Delight.--Joe's Culinary Performances.--A Dissertation on Raw Meat.--The Narrative of James Bruce.--Camping out.--Joe's Dreams.--The Barometer begins to fall.--The Barometer rises again.--Preparations for Departure.--The Tempest

• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH.

Signs of Vegetation.--The Fantastic Notion of a French Author.--A Magnificent Country.--The Kingdom of Adamova.--The Explorations of Speke and Burton connected with those of Dr. Barth.--The Atlantika Mountains.--The River Benoue.--The City of Yola.--The Bagele.--Mount Mendif

• CHAPTER THIRTIETH.

Mosfeia.--The Sheik.--Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney.--Vogel.--The Capital of Loggoum.--Toole.--Becalmed above Kernak.--The Governor and his Court. --The Attack.--The Incendiary Pigeons

• CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST.

Departure in the Night-time.--All Three.--Kennedy's Instincts.--Precautions.-- The Course of the Shari River.--Lake Tchad.--The Water of the Lake.--The Hippopotamus.--One Bullet thrown away

• CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND.

The Capital of Bornou.--The Islands of the Biddiomahs.--The Condors.--The Doctor's Anxieties.--His Precautions.--An Attack in Mid-air.--The Balloon Covering torn.--The Fall.--Sublime Self-Sacrifice.--The Northern Coast of the Lake

• CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD.

Conjectures.--Reestablishment of the Victoria's Equilibrium.--Dr. Ferguson's New Calculations.--Kennedy's Hunt.--A Complete Exploration of Lake Tchad.--Tangalia.--The Return.--Lari

• CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH.

The Hurricane.--A Forced Departure.--Loss of an Anchor.--Melancholy Reflections.--The Resolution adopted.--The Sand-Storm.--The Buried Caravan.-- A Contrary yet Favorable Wind.--The Return southward.--Kennedy at his Post

• CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH.

What happened to Joe.--The Island of the Biddiomahs.--The Adoration shown him.--The Island that sank.--The Shores of the Lake.--The Tree of the Serpents.--The Foot-Tramp.--Terrible Suffering.--Mosquitoes and Ants.-- Hunger.--The Victoria seen.--She disappears.--The Swamp.--One Last Despairing Cry

• CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH.

A Throng of People on the Horizon.--A Troop of Arabs.--The Pursuit.--It is He.--Fall from Horseback.--The Strangled Arab.--A Ball from Kennedy.-- Adroit Manoeuvres.--Caught up flying.--Joe saved at last

• CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH.

The Western Route.--Joe wakes up.--His Obstinacy.--End of Joe's Narrative. --Tagelei.--Kennedy's Anxieties.--The Route to the North.--A Night near Aghades

• CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH.

A Rapid Passage.--Prudent Resolves.--Caravans in Sight.--Incessant Rains.-- Goa.--The Niger.--Golberry, Geoffroy, and Gray.--Mungo Park.--Laing.-- Rene Caillie.--Clapperton.--John and Richard Lander

• CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH.

The Country in the Elbow of the Niger.--A Fantastic View of the Hombori Mountains.--Kabra.--Timbuctoo.--The Chart of Dr. Barth.--A Decaying City.-- Whither Heaven wills

• CHAPTER FORTIETH.

Dr. Ferguson's Anxieties.--Persistent Movement southward.--A Cloud of Grasshoppers.--A View of Jenne.--A View of Sego.--Change of the Wind.-- Joe's Regrets

• CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST.

The Approaches to Senegal.--The Balloon sinks lower and lower.--They keep throwing out, throwing out.--The Marabout Al-Hadji.--Messrs. Pascal, Vincent, and Lambert.--A Rival of Mohammed.--The Difficult Mountains. --Kennedy's Weapons.--One of Joe's Manoeuvres.--A Halt over a Forest

• CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND.

A Struggle of Generosity.--The Last Sacrifice.--The Dilating Apparatus.--Joe's Adroitness.--Midnight.--The Doctor's Watch.--Kennedy's Watch.--The Latter falls asleep at his Post.--The Fire.--The Howlings of the Natives.--Out of Range

• CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD.

The Talabas.--The Pursuit.--A Devastated Country.--The Wind begins to fall.--The Victoria sinks.--The last of the Provisions.--The Leaps of the Balloon.--A Defence with Fire-arms.--The Wind freshens.--The Senegal River.--The Cataracts of Gouina.--The Hot Air.--The Passage of the River

• CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH.

Conclusion.--The Certificate.--The French Settlements.--The Post of Medina.-- The Battle.--Saint Louis.--The English Frigate.--The Return to London.

This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.