Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/214

198 "You speak of a certain height at which the hydrogen gas will find itself in equilibrium in the air of the atmosphere. I believe that this height is the extremity of the atmosphere itself; for as the gas has an elasticity much greater than that of the air, it will go on dilating as it mounts into the higher regions of the atmosphere, and its specific weight will diminish as the weight of atmospheric air diminishes; and it will not cease to mount until it rises above the atmosphere itself, if two conditions be completely fulfilled—, the condition that the gas may be allowed to dilate without leaving the balloon as it rises;, the condition that the gas shall not be allowed to mix at all with the atmospheric air."

Another ascent was arranged for the 14th of August, in which Robertson was to be accompanied by the professor, but the latter, yielding to the entreaties of his family, did not go. "I went up with my friend Lhoest," says Robertson, "at forty-two minutes past twelve midday. In a minute or two we rose up between two masses of cloud, which seemed to open up and offer us a passage. The upper surfaces of these clouds are not uniformly level, like the under sides seen from the earth, but they are of a conical or pyramidal shape. These imposing masses seem to precipitate themselves upon the earth, as if to engulf it, but this optical illusion was due to the apparent immobility of the balloon, which at the moment was rising at the rate of about twenty feet per second.

"The fear of losing the view of the Baltic, which we perceived between the clouds at intervals, obliged us to renounce the project of rising as high as on the last occasion. The barometer was at fifteen inches, and the thermometer one degree below zero, when I let off two pigeons.