Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies

now taut, and fully distended. Soon the hydrogen gas began to escape in considerable quantities by the neck of the balloon, and then, from time to time, I pulled open the valve to give it two issues at once; and I continued thus to mount upwards, all the time losing the inflammable air, which, rushing past me from the neck of the balloon, felt like a warm cloud. “I passed in ten minutes from the temperature of spring to that of winter; the cold was keen and dry, but not insupportable. I examined all my sensations calmly; I COULD HEAR MYSELF LIVE, so to speak, and I am certain that at first I experienced nothing disagreeable in this sudden passage from one temperature to another. “When the barometer ceased to move I noted very exactly eighteen inches ten lines. This observation is perfectly accurate The mercury did not suffer any sensible movement. “At the end of some minutes the cold caught my fingers; I could hardly hold the pen, but I no longer had need to do so. I was stationary, or rather moved only in a horizontal direction. “I raised myself in the middle of the car, and abandoned myself to the spectacle before me. At my departure from the meadow the sun had sunk to the people of the valleys; soon he shone for me alone, and came again to pour his rays upon the balloon and the car. I was the only creature in the horizon in sunshine--all the rest of nature was in shade. Ere long, however, the sun disappeared, and thus I had the pleasure of seeing him set twice in the same day. I contemplated for some moments the mists and vapours that rose from the valley and the rivers The clouds seemed to come forth from the earth, and to accumulate the one upon the other. Their colour was a monotonous grey--a natural effect, for there was no light save that of the moon. “I observed that I had tacked round twice, and I felt currents which called me to my senses. I found with surprise the effect of the wind, and saw the cloth of my flag: extended horizontally. “In the midst of the inexpressible pleasure of this state of ecstatic contemplation, I was recalled to myself by a most extraordinary pain which I felt in the interior of the ears and in the maxillary glands. This I attributed to the dilation of the air contained in the cellular tissue of the organ as much as to the