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 tube by which the rotary ventilator fed the interior air balloon. The air valve AV was an exhaust valve similar to the two gas valves VV in the great balloon, with the one exception that it was weaker. In this way, when there happened to be too much fluid ( i.e. gas or air, or both) distending the great balloon, all the air would leave the interior balloon before any of the gas would leave the great balloon. The first trial of my "No. 2" was set for 11th May 1899. Unfortunately, the weather, which had been fine in the morning, grew steadily rainy in the afternoon. In those days I had no balloon house of my own. All the morning the balloon had been slowly filling with hydrogen gas at the captive balloon station of the Jardin d'Acclimatation. As there was no shed there for me the work had to be done in the open, and it was done vexatiously, with a hundred delays, surprises, and excuses.