The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1875-05-13

A cable dispatch some days ago an
nOunced fatal catastrophe which ter
minated the second ascension of the
balloon Zenith" when two of the
aeronauts died of asphyxia, and the
third returned to the earth half dead.
Fuller accounts of the affair reach us by
mail, and we translate the following
from the Paris papers. We must await
further advices for satisfactory explain
alton of this remarkable occurrence.
The list, already SO long, of victims to
science, now contains two more names.
M. Croce-Spinelli and M. Sivel, the in
trepid natural philosophers, who under
took recently scientific ascension with
M. CASTOR Tissandier, have perished in
the course Oftheir dangerous voyage. The
object of the ascension of the balloon
Zenith" was the stuGy of the high
regions of the air, and the savans who
went up in it were resolved to 60 as high
as possible-beyond the highest eleva-
ton attained by their predecessors-tO
study the chemical and physical COM
position of those regions of the atmos-
phere situated seven or eight thousand
metres above the earth. In undertaking
these studies they were not ignorant of
the dangers to which they would be ex-
posed. They knew that at 8, 500 metres
the air is no longer fit for human respira-
ton; that even birds can not live in an
atmosphere so rarified as to be untitled
for the aerification of the blood; they
knew against how many difficulties they
had themseles cOntended in former as
cension, and at the price of what
fatigues they had the first time escaped
from the death which they were about
to face anew. But these considerations
were not sufficient to deter them, and
they departed.
The unhappy men sought to struggle
against death by artificial processes. To
resist the mortal effects of the irrespir-
able air, the intrepid savans had taken
with them some little balloons full of
oxygen gas, according to the suggestions
of DR.. Paul Bert. At the altitude of
$500 metres this gas becoming more and
more rarified in the atmosphere, they
would have recourse to an artificial res
piration. Then, said they before they
departed, they would give themselves
up to their venturesome experiences !;
then they would study the composition
of an air which would stihe them,
which no living being had ever risked
before them; then they would examine,
as far as possible, each other, in order to
know how many pulsations their hearts,
beating mad dance, attained to in a
minute, and to notice to what degree of
stupidity they descended in raising
themselves to these deadly regions; for
at the height of more than 1000 metres,
one not only dies, but before death be-
comes stupefied. They would be obliged,
in order to succumb, to breathe by means
of slender pipes oxygen contained in
fragile bags of goldbeaters' skin. 1t was
owing to this apparatus that they would
be able voluntarily to allow themselves
to 60 to the verge of sitting, then to
breathe, again, and thus, after fashion,
to play with death.
At eleven and a-half o'clock in the
morning of the 10Th of April the
Zenith" ascended from the gas manu-
factory of Vilette. A favorable wind
took them in a sOutherly direction, and
they arose rapidly. Ten minutes after
their departure from Vilette the
"Zenith" disappeared in a thick fog.
After that nothing was heard of them |;
but upon the 10th of the month some
travellers arriving in Paris from Indre
spread the news that the aeronauts had
fallen victims to an accident. Afterward
the Aerial Navigation Society received
the following dispatch:
"Set out from Paris at 1885. The balloon
arose TO aheight of 5000 metres, at which
the two companions Of M. Tissandier were
stifed. IL wns noon. The descent of the
balloon was only effected at 4 o'clock, at a
distance of two Kilometres from Ciron (De.
partment OF Indrel upon one OF the farms
Of M. d'Aubeigne. The bodies were placed
at the house OF M. d'Aubeigne. Certified AZ
correct, according to information received
on the spot.
"(Signed,) EMILE OUzEAUx."