Gaston Tissandier (1843-1899) was a French chemist, meteorologist, aviator and editor. Adventurer could be added to the list of his titles, as he managed to escape besieged Paris by balloon in September 1870. He founded and edited the scientific magazine La Nature and wrote several books.

His brother was illustrator Albert Tissandier (1839-1906). They were often seen together.

Gaston Tissandier was born in Paris in 1843. He studied chemistry and in 1864 became the head of the experimental laboratory of Union nationales. He was also a teacher at Association polytechnique. His interest in meteorology led him to take up aviation. His first trip in the air was conducted at Calais in 1868, where his balloon drifted out over the sea and was brought back by an air stream of opposite direction in a higher layer of air. In September 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, he managed to leave the besieged Paris by balloon. His most adventurous airtrip, however, took place in April 1875. Together with Crocé-Spinelli and Sivel, he was able to reach in a balloon the unheard of altitude of 8,600 metres. Both of his companions died from breathing the thin air. Tissandier survived, but became deaf. In 1883, Tissandier fit a Siemens electric motor to an airship, thus creating the first electric-powered flight.

Tissandier reported his meteorological observations to the French Academy of Sciences. In 1873 he founded the weekly scientific magazine La Nature , which he edited until 1896, after which it was continued by others. He also authored several books:

Bibliography

• Élements de chimie, 1867-1870
• L'eau, 1867, 4th edition 1878
• La houille, 1869
• Voyages aériens, 1870
• En ballon pedant le siége de Paris, 1871
• Les merveilles de la photographie, 1873
• Les fossiles, 1874
• L'héliogravure, 1875
• Histoire de la gravure typographique, 1875
• Simples notions sur les ballons, 1876
• Histoire de mes ascensiones, 1877 or 1878
• Le grand ballon captif à vapeur de M.Giffard, 1879
• Les martyrs de la science, 1879
• Observations météorologiques en ballon. Resumé de 25 ascensions aérostatiques, 1879
• Histoire des ballons et des aéronautes célèbres, 1887
• Bibliographie aéronautique, 1887

Besides these scientific works, he also published several titles for the youth, such as Les récréations scientifiques ou l'enseignement par les jeux, 1880, perhaps the very first title in the genre of books of simple science experiments that anybody can conduct in their own home. Its chapters were in part based on the column "physique sans appareils" (physics without apparatus) in La Nature.

External links

• La Nature, complete year runs 1873--1905, digitized by Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris
• Tissandier Collection from the Library of Congress. Drawings, prints, and photographs by and collected by Gaston and Albert Tissandier.

See also

• List of years in aviation

This text is based in part on articles from old public domain encyclopedias in German and Swedish.