Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1870-05-12
Five Miles Above the Earth A
Thilling Adventure.

One dull day in August,ju after noon.
a balloon rose in the air at the foot of Cloet
Hills, on the western edge of the centre
plain of England. 1t was inflated with
the Highest of gases which chemical ski |
could produce, and it rose with amazing
velocity. A mile up and it entered a
stratum of cloud more than thousand
feet thick. Emerging from this, the sun
shone brightly on the airline; the sky
overhead was of the clearest and deepest
blue, and below lay cloudland-an i'm
measurable expanse of white clouds whose
surface looked as solid as that of the earth
not wholly lost to view. Lofty mountains,
and deep, dark ravines, appeared below
the peak and the sides of those cloud
mountains next the sun glittering like
snow, but casting shadows as if they were
solid rock. Up rose the balloon with
tremendous velocity. Four miles above
the earth pigeon was loosed it dropped
down as if it was stone. The air was
too thin to enable it to fly. It was as if a
barque laden to the deck were to pass
from the heavy waters of the sea into an
inland unsaline lake, the barque would
sink at once in the thinner water. Up.
up, still higher! What silence profound!
The heights of the sky were still as the
deepest depths of the ocean, where, as
was found during the search for the lost
Atlantic cable, the mud lies as unstirred
from year to year as the dust which i'm
perceptibIy gathers on the furniture of a
deserted house. No sound. no life-only
the bright sunshine falling through q sky
It could not warm.
Up-miles above the earth higher
than the inaccessible summit of Chimbarazo
or Dawangiri. Despite the sunshine.
everything freezes. The air grows too
thin to support life, even for few min
utes. Two men only are in the ship, that
adventurous balloon-the one steering the
air ship, the other watching the scientific
instruments, and recording them with
rapidity of long practice. Suddenly. as
the latter looks OF his instrument bis
sight grows dim! he takes lens to help
his sight, and only marks from the falling
barometer that they are testing rapidity.
Brandy is within foot of him !; he tried
70 reach it, but his arms refused to obey
his will. He tries to call on his comrade
who has gone up in the ring above. Q
whispering that deep silence would suffice
but no sound comes from his lips-he is
voiceless. The steersman comes down in
the car he sees his comrade in swoon.
and no feels his own sense failing
him.
He saw at once that life and death
hung upon few moments. He seized or
tried to seize the valve, in order to let out
gas He seized the valve with bis teeth,
It opened little-onee, twice. thrice
The balloon began to decend. Then the
swooned marksmsn returned to conscious
,ss and saw the steersman standing
before him. He looked at bis instru.
ments but now tho barometer was rails
ing rapidly the balloon was descending -
Brandy was used. They had been
higher above the earth than mortal man
OF any living thing had ever been before
One minute more Of inaetion--of com
pulsory inaction-on the part of steers.
man whose senses were falling him, anu
the air-ship With its intensely rarefed "a,
would have been floating unattended, viii
two eorpses in the wide realm Of space.