Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/219

Rh attention, were the law of the decrease of temperature in progress upwards, the discovery of whether the chemical composition of the atmosphere is the same throughout all its parts, the comparison of the strength of the solar rays in the higher regions of the atmosphere and on the surface of the earth, the ascertaining whether the light reflected and transmitted by the clouds is or is not polarised, &c.

All the preparations having been made in the garden of the Observatory at Paris, the ascent took place on the 29th of June, 1850, at 10.27 a.m., the balloon being filled with hydrogen gas. The first ascent was a signal failure. It was found that the weather being bad, the envelope of the balloon was torn in several places, and had to be mended in all haste. Immediately preceding the moment of ascent, a torrent of rain fell. But the voyagers were determined to ascend. They placed themselves in the car, and, when thrown off from the fastenings, they rose through the air with the speed of an arrow. The height to which the balloon reached made it suddenly dilate, and the network, which was much too small, was stretched to the utmost. The balloon was forced down upon them by the dilation, and one of them, in the endeavour to work the valve, made a rent in the lower part of the globe, from which the gas escaping almost over the heads of the travellers, nearly choked them. The escape of the gas had the usual result—the balloon descended rapidly, and fell in a vineyard near Lugny, where they were found by the peasants holding on to the trees by their legs and arms, and thus attempting to stop the horizontal advance of the car. They had risen to the height of over 17,000 feet, and they had descended from this height in from four to five minutes.

For all practical purposes, the ascent was a failure, and