Jules Francois Dupuis-Delcourt (1802-1864),French professional balloonist,designer,inventor,and editor of a Paris journal,made his first balloon ascent in 1824. As an experimenter he devised an aerial lightning conductor,named “l'electro substracteurâ€,based on a metallic balloon tethered to the ground by a metal cable to earth the electrical charge collected. The balloon was designed to be a copper cylinder with pointed ends,but he was unable fund its construction. He joined another inventor,Edmond Marey-Monge,who was attempting to construct a large,spherical copper balloon and in 1844 they attempted to launch it,but were unsuccessful |