Toy balloon in "Swiss Family Robinson" (1813) and in "Moby Dick" (1851). The first rubber balloons were made by Professor Michael Faraday in 1824 for use in his experiments with hydrogen at the Royal Institution in London. "The caoutchouc is exceedingly elastic", he wrote in the Quarterly Journal of Science the same year. "Bags made of it...have been expanded by having air forced into them, until the caoutchouc was quite transparent, and when expanded by hydrogen they were so light as to form balloons with considerable ascending power..." Faraday made his balloons by cutting round two sheets of rubber laid together and
Balloon release which float down after a short time, helium or hydrogen balloons quickly rise to heights in which they can no longer be seen. Balloon releases are also used in celebration, as a substitute to confetti, in order to avoid an immediate mess. A balloon race or balloon flight contest is a competition wherein the competitors attempt to send balloons as far as possible. It can be compared to a rubber duck race. Postcards are attached to the balloons which are then released. The flight of the balloons cannot be influenced by the competitors. Instead, success in the contest is dependent