Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/48

30 his joy at seeing his master. A new current separated the aerial voyagers, but the parachute, with its canine passenger, reached the ground safely a short time after Blanchard had landed from his balloon.

Experience has proved that, in the case of a descending parachute, if the rapidity of the descent is doubled the



resistance of the air is quadrupled; if the rapidity is triple the resistance is increased ninefold; or, to speak in language of science, the resistance of the air is increased by the square of the swiftness of the body in motion. This resistance increases in proportion as the parachute spreads,