The biography of a little known American aeronaut and balloonist, John who came from a German background near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has a and a fluid style which make good teen age reading. A man ahead of his time, John W lived during the nineteenth century. The remarkable thing was that he actually made his living as a balloonist when people thought flight was fantastic. By refusing to let ridicule rankle him, Wise continued the experiments he had to , decided not to be either a minister or a cabinet maker and availed himself of whatever aeronautical knowledge he could. People like Professor Mitchell of the Institute in Philadelphia gave Wise what help they could and with supports than the precarious balloons he went aloft in, managed to attract enough able to devote his life to flight. Outstanding accomplishments and were the discovery of the air current we now call the Jet Stream, improvement of balloon safety devices, unfulfilled plans for Civil War ballooning and a nearly successful the Atlantic. These surface failures merely added to the conviction of the value of his work. Exciting.