The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1911-03-02

and their answers struck me al be-
Ing the most droII things had
ever heard, and / started TO laugh
loudly. botsterOusIy.
The spund OF my laughter had
sOmethips uneznnS in IL and J.
SuddenJy aUoke to the realization
81 theffact thai had been laughing
81 INF way for fully ten minutes
and that there W. nothing to.
IaHek at after all
Crazy" thought. and as the
.hoPghI flashed across my mind.
~irh all the horrible possibilities Of
a hss Of mental balance nearly two
nlnea above the earth, with the
slightest movement spelling awful
GSa,h. pulled myself together
aSafn and made a final desperate
effort TO cross the 10000 mark.
u was impossible for me TO know
Ths:her had succeeded or not.
The last few feet were sucn a bit
ter struggle up and down. up and
down through the thin air, that /
could not look at the barograph,
and indeed could not see the line
The one time I did try, for my eyes
had become affected by the strain
md everything was blur TO me
Finally, utterly exhausted and
numb both in body and mind, 4
save up the struggle and turned
thc nose OF the BIeroit toward the
rirII
Rave not words 70 describe that
drs"ent 1t would sound like the
."rIcst driycl IL ! should try, for
mir = man trained To rcpress' IN
ii Anperlativss could give an idea
~ its horrors without making it
5' III like silly exaggeration.
Livery reader has probably gone
h0wn fifteen or twenty floors in an
".Hress elevator Do you remem-
hfr .-1w dizzy and sick at the stom-
"ch Il made you?
VI: descent was made at the rate
oi "crtical mile in about two
riinutng while I was travelling hor-
'Z"n'sily at the rate OF seventy or
sevehty-five miles an hour. In
other words, my vertical speed
downward was about four times as
faat as that OF the fastest elevator,
and had the added strain Of the
tremendous horizontal momentum.
The effect OF this rapid descent
Ii almost paralyzing. Those who
have travelled under the new Penn:
sylvania Railroad tunnels to New
York have feft the effect of the
pressure OF air against the ear
drums. This Is about one-tenth
she effect that Is made upon the
era when descending in an aero
LANE from great height
In my case, in coming down from
1897 feet at my tremendous rate
Il speed. my ears felt like they
ould burst and the top OF my
cad felt as though IL would fly off
1t any moment. Added to this
:ame the feeling Of nausea. which
grew and grew until my head swan.
md Just for one moment, am
sure, lost conBciousness. This
4'u' Shouiu say, 1T a nelSht
II between 1000 and 5000 feet.
Again had to bring all my self
control to my rescue. but my nery-
GUS energy was ebbing fast, and I !
.'emember wonderin & how much
longer | should be able to fight
back the utter collapse that 1 knew
i.ts coming soon.
You must remember that all this
was occurring when | bad only an
approximate idea of how high above
the earth was and when | had !
absolutely no idea Of my geograph- /
ical position. After | had passed
through the upper STRATA of clouds
at height Of some 1000 feet /
had not again Eseen the earth ex-
cept for little drifting patches of .
lndistinct drah as / flew over the
riffs i'm the vapor, and I did not
know whether / was one mile or .
hundred miles from PHILADELPHIA.
And now | was descending so fast
and was so nearly helpless. both
physically apd mentally, that Il
could do nothing except keep the
Bleriot on the proper slant to give
the best descent witfrOthe least DOS
sible strain
Into the clouds again | went,
circling now with some vague idea
that ] had managed somehow to
Keep over the Point Breeze field
from which | had started. knew
that / should collapse utterly when
1 landed. supposingl of course that
did finally land in safety, and
nOpGd tina" | would come dOwn