Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/565

Rh on either side. It being about the time of high water, the formation was supposed to be the effect of the warm current coming np from the sea.

On the 5th of September, 1862, the aëronauts reached the height, which has never been surpassed by man, of 37,000 feet, or seven miles. Mr. Glaisher thus described his experiences after making his observations at 29,000 feet: "Shortly afterward, I laid my arm upon the table, possessed of its full vigor, and, on being desirous of using it, I found it powerless—it must have lost its power momentarily. I tried to move the other arm, and found it powerless also. I then tried to shake myself, and succeeded in shaking my body. I seemed to have no limbs. I then looked at the barometer, and while doing so my head fell over my left shoulder. I struggled and shook my body again, but could not move my arms. I got my head upright, but for an instant only, when it fell on my right shoulder, and then I fell backward, my back resting against the side of the car and my head on its edge; in this position my eyes were directed toward Mr. Coxwell in the ring. When I shook my body I seemed to have full power over the muscles of the back, and considerable power over those of the neck, but none over either my arms or my legs; now, in fact, I seemed to have none. As in the case of the arms, all muscular power was lost in an instant from my back and neck. I dimly saw Mr. Coxwell in the ring, and endeavored to speak, but could not; when, in an instant, intense black darkness came; the optic nerve finally lost power suddenly. I was still conscious, with as active a brain as at the present moment while writing this. I thought I had been seized with asphyxia, and that I should experience no more, as death would come unless we speedily descended; other thoughts were entering my mind, when I suddenly become unconscious as in going to sleep. I can not tell anything of the sense of hearing; the perfect stillness and silence of the regions six miles from the earth (and at this time we were between six and seven miles high) is such that no sound reaches the ear." During this time Mr. Coxwell was in the ring above the car, trying to open the valve. He also lost the use of his hands, and was obliged to seize the cord with his teeth and pull it by dipping his head. Consciousness returned gradually to Mr. Glaisher, and no inconvenience followed the insensibility; and when the party had landed, no conveyance being available, they were obliged to walk several miles.

In the ascent of June 26, 1863, the party passed through layer above layer of clouds to the height of four miles; in the descent, they passed through a fall of rain, and below it a snow-storm, the flakes of which were composed of spiculæ of ice and innumerable snow-crystals. On reaching the ground the atmosphere was