Year: 1874

can.


| Now came the most stirring incident


Of our trip. From the height of four


thousand feet We steadily ascended.


the country dwarfiBg into n panorama


OF toys below us had the aneroid


barometer in my hand, and so marked


our progress upward. At six thou


sand SIX hundred feet our breaths be-


came visible, just as they would be on


frosty morning. We already began


to feel cold in the body, but the rays


OF the sun beat in upon us with fierce


intensity. The index of the barome-


ter steadily erept around the dial.


marking the thousands until ii reached


the fourteenth, then flying back again


and starting from zero, from vheneeit


progressed once more around the dial


until it halted on the verge of two


thOusandth, telling rs that we were


only about a hundred feet less than


sixteen thousand feet above the easth.


At this height the world wasan obscu-


rity to Us, vapory haze shut II our


from our view, and we could detect


nothing of it but the long silver lines


that marked the great bays and rivers.


From a contemplation ofthe indIstinet


scene / revert to my own feelings. The
air was very cold. and the sun wasvery


warm. The Thermometer stood at S}0.
the sun was intensely hot. as its rays


fell upon US, but for all that We might
as well have been IN an Arctic region.
This is one Of the most curious phe-
nomeDa oflife above the clouds. The
rarefactI0n of the air hardly accounts
for the chilling cold which penetrates
you through and through, while the
thermometer and the heat of the solar
rays are indicating high summer tenn
Derature At height of fifteen thou
sand feet | was shivering while my
head seemed to be burning up, aud all
the blood in my body rushing towards
it., / felt a very slight difficulty in
breathing, but my ears were stopped
up, and | could hardly hear what Mr..
Fox was saying to me when he was
standing by my side. We did not re-
main long atthis tremendous elevation.
We slipped down through the atmos-
phere to between eleven and twelve
thousand feet above the earth, and it
was there that we had our grandest
view We had within our range of
vision at the same moment, Philadel-
phia, Baltimore and Harr sburr, the
Chesapeake and Delaware BAYS, and all
their upper tributaries, and also An
napolis and the most of the smaller
towns are included within this extend
ed vision. But the grandest feature Of
all was when gazing eastwardly, we very
plainly perceived the Atlantic Ocean.
There was no mistake about it; the
mist had lifted little, and could plain
ly see where the waters of the Della
ware Bay mingled with those of the
Atlantic The view at this time was
above thepossibility of language to pic
ture. The peninsula OF land between
the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays was
as but thread of dark green upon the
landscape the Susquehanna river was
hardly perceptible except for the dark
line which we knew to be the great
bridge across it; the country below US
was but as a checker board OF indis-
tinct green aud white squares Balti-
more and Philadelphia were only
masses of shade upon the map; but the
great ocean was reality, aud to view
of it We constantly turned our eyes with
a feeling that here was somethipgever-
lasting and enduring The panorama
that came within our scope Of vision
was probably not less than two hun
dred square miles, but from our height
of sixteen thousand feet it seemed 10
be dwarfed to space you might cover
with your handkerchief. 1t seemed to
us as if we were looking through the
wrong end of a feld-glass. When at
this height of sixteen thousand feet, or
over three miles above the earth, Pro
fessOr Donaldson told us that the bal
loon had obtained its equilibrium, that
il was poised On balance, and that as
soon as the gas commenced 10 con
dense, even in the slightest degree, We
would descend rapidly, and it was pre-
cisely In this fashion that we did go
down.