Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/203

Rh Harris, an old officer of the English navy, together with another English aeronaut, named Graham, had made a great many ascents. He conceived the idea of constructing a balloon upon an original plan; but his alterations do not seem to have been improvements. In May, 1824, he attempted an ascent from London, which had much apparent success, but which terminated fatally. When at a great elevation, it seems, the aeronaut, wishing to descend, opened the valve. It had not been well constructed, and after being opened it would not close again. The consequent loss of gas brought the balloon down with great force. Harris lost his life with the fall; but the young lady who had accompanied him received only a trifling wound.

Sadler, a celebrated English aeronaut, who, in one of his many experiments, had crossed the Irish Channel between Dublin and Holyhead, lost his life miserably near Bolton, on the 28th of September, 1824. Deprived of his ballast, in consequence of his long sojourn in the air, and forced at last to descend, at a late hour, upon a number of high buildings, the wind drove him violently against a chimney. The force of the shock threw him out of his car, and he fell to the earth and died. His prudence and knowledge were unquestionable, and his death is to be ascribed alone to accident. It was an aerial shipwreck.

Cocking had gone up twice in Mr. Green's balloon as a simple amateur. He took it into his head to go up a third time. He wished to attempt a descent in a parachute of his own construction, which he believed was vastly superior to the ordinary one. He altered the form altogether, though that form had been proved to be satisfactory. In place of a concave surface, supporting itself on a volume of air,