Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/202

186 amiability, and modesty endeared him to all who knew him. She who was dearest to him—a young English lady, who boarded at a convent at Boulogne, and whom he had first met only a few days prior to his last ascent—could not support the news of his death. Horrible convulsions seized her and she expired, it is said, eight days after the dreadful catastrophe. Roziers died at the age of twenty-eight and a half years."

Olivari perished at Orleans on the 25th of November, 1802. He had ascended in a Montgolfière made of paper, strengthened only by some bands of cloth. His car, made of osiers, and loaded with combustible matter, was suspended below the grating; and when at a great elevation it became the prey of the flames. The aeronaut, thus deprived of his support, fell, at the distance of a league from the spot from which he had risen.

Mosment made his last ascent at Lille on the 7th of April, 1806. His balloon was made of silk, and was filled with hydrogen gas. Ten minutes after his departure he threw into the air a parachute with which he had provided himself. It is supposed that the oscillations consequent on the throwing off of the parachute were the cause of they aeronaut's fall. Some pretend that Mosment had foretold his death, and that it was caused by a willful carelessness. However this may be, the balloon continued its flight alone, and the body of the aeronaut was found partly buried in the sand of the fosse which surrounds the town.

Bittorff made a great many successful ascents. He never used any machine but the Montgolfière. At Manheim, on the 17th of July, the day of his death his balloon, which was of paper, sixteen mètres in diameter, and twenty in height, took fire in the air, and the aeronaut was thrown down upon the town. His fall was mortal.