Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/213

Rh Our descent caused that degree of terror among the inhabitants which the size of our balloon was calculated to inspire in a country where such machines had never before been seen. We descended above a poor village called Radenburg, a place amid the heaths of Hanover. Our appearance caused great alarm, and even the beasts of the field fled from us.

"While our balloon rapidly approached the earth, we waved our hats and flags, and shouted to the inhabitants, but our voices only increased their terror. The villagers rushed away with cries of terror, leaving their herds, whose bellowings increased the general alarm. When the balloon touched the ground, every man had shut himself up in his own house. Having appealed in vain, and fearing that the villagers might do us some injury, we resolved to re-ascend.

"In making this second ascent, we threw over all our ballast; but in this we were imprudent, for after sailing about at a great height, and having lost much gas, I perceived that our descent would be very rapid, and to provide against accident, I gathered together all the instruments, the bread, the ropes, and even such money as we had with us, and placed them in three sacks, to which I attached a rope of a hundred feet in length. This precaution saved us a shock. The weight, amounting to thirty pounds, reached the ground before us, and the balloon, thus lightened, came softly to the ground between Wichtenbech and Hanover, after having run twenty-five leagues in five and a half hours."

After this ascent Robertson became acquainted with some savants of Hamburg, and amongst others with Professor Pfaff, who was interested in aerial travelling as a means of settling certain meteorological problems. Some days after Robertson's ascent, the professor wrote to him—