The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-31 00:00:00

sea—,
to pieces, and perhaps offer violence to himself. In
this difficulty, a man named Chambers, lighter than
Mr. Coxwell, stepped forward and offered, and he
had had some experience in such matters, to go up
if the balloon would raise him. Coxwell consented ;
and, with two bags of sand, the volunteer started,
and the crowd were satisfied. But the difficulty,
removed from Mr. Coxwell's shoulders, now took
up its position. on those of Chambers in a greatly
aggravated form. The lifting power of the balloon
had not been sufficient to raise Mr. Coxwell with-
out any ballast. He weighed llst., Chambers
weighed Oat ; bat be took up two begs of ballast with
him. Their weight is not mentioned ; but, sup-
posing them together to have weighed 201bs. the
lifting power of the balloon when Chambers made
his ascent would have been so small, that the addi-
tion of 8 pounds' weight must have brought it to the
ground. So that, if by an escape of gas, or an addi-
tion to the weight of the balloon by its being wetted
in passing through a cloud, the sustaining power
was overbalanced by the load the balloon had to
carry, the chances were a thousand to one that the
resalt would be fatal. Now, both these conditions
took place, and they were aggravated by the fact
that Chambers, immediately after he began to
ascend, threw out a portion of his ballast. Shortly
after it rose the helicon entered a heavy cloud, and,
breaking from that into the clear sunshine, the gas
expanded and escaped through the neck, which is
always left open, of course, at the bottom. This
might have been prevented by Chambers opening
the upper valve, at the top of the balloon, in time.
He failed to do this till too late. The gas rushing
from the lower valve appears to have stifled him,
and he was found, on the fall of the balloon, lying
dead at the bottom of the car, with the valve-
cord round his wrist; so that the upper valve must
have been kept completely open, utterly reversing
the slight balance between the weight the balloon
had to carry and its power to carry it. This easily
accounts for its collapse; and on a review of the
evidence given at the coroner's inquest, it is but
just to Mr. Coxwell to say that the circumstances
which at starting rendered the ascent so perilous do
not seem to have constituted the proximate cause of
the fatality. , Bat we cannot acquit him of blame
in handing over his balloon to an amateur, of whose
ability as an aeronaut be had no personal knowledge.
Of ipourse, from the moment the balloon left the earth
the error was irreparable; but the proof that it was
an error became at once apparent. His ballast is the
aeronaut's only hope, when the weight and the lift-
ing power are so nearly balanced as they were in this
case. Chambers at once showed his ignorance by
throwing it out. From that moment he was doomed
should the balloon become wet by passing through a
cloud, and its weight increased beyond the power of
the gas to sustain it. Even if he had not been fitlf-•
focated—and this is only Mr. Coxwell's surmise,
though a probable one, as the man was found with
hie handkerchief stuffed into his mouth—there is
every reason to believe that his fate would have been
the same. The manipulation of the balloon in the
untoward circumstances under which it started re-
quired a skill and delicacy not to be expected from
any but the most experienced aeronaut. No doubt
Mr. Coxwell feft the pressure of the consequences
to be expected from a disappointed crowd. He had
had his balloons torn in pieces before by an enlight-
ened British public which had come to see them go
up, and would take no excuse, not even the proba-
bility of the owner breaking his neck to please them.
It is due to him also to say that he cautioned Cham-
bers not to go either high or far. Bat it would have
been better, wiser, and far more satisfactory if he had
let the mob wreak their vengeance on the balloon
rather than permit an ascent which this very cau-
tion shows he considered unusually perilous.
ATHENZUM.—After waiting more years than a
man of middle age likes to own for a public sight of
the four lions commissioned from Sir Edwin Land-
seer by Lord John Manners for the monument in
Trafalgar-square, we are assured by a writer who
has been favoured with a peep, that a model of one
lion has actually been finished, and has been shown
to" a few friends and critics in a private studio in
Brompton. The model is small—and the real
working model has still to be made. This real
model, we are told, can now be fashioned by in-
ferior hands. When it is likely to be done, when
it is likely to be ready for the caster, when the
bronze is likely to he set up in Trafalgar-square,
no hint is given. Of course, the " friend and
critic" speaks in raptures of the lion thus shown to
him. The public who care for Art will wait until
the work is publicly shown before accepting as
serious an announcement that the Landseer lion
beats all other lions, ancient and modern, the
Egyptian lions of the Campidoglio, the lions of the
Assyrian frieze. the great lion of Cnidos, together
with the lion of Canova and the lion of Lucerne,
completely out of the field. The world will judge
of that by-and-by. Meantime it will notice, with
surprise, that it is now proposed to give us only
one lion for our money—one lion, four times
repeated, with such simple variations of attitude us
a turn of the head or a wag of the tail may produce.
We cannot pretend to think that this is a satisfac-
tory announcement. Rightly or wrongly, the world
believed that it was to have four lions for the Nelson
Column—four distinct artistic works. It has paid
for those four lions a very large sum of money. It
has waited for theni a great many years. Will it
be content to know that a small model of one lion
has been finished, and that the artist proposes to
cast from this model four copies, with such unim-
portant changes as the shifting of a paw or the
turning of an eyeball may effect in the character of
the group ?