472 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



duplex method ranks second in importance only to Stein- 

 heil's discovery in 1837 of the feasibility of employing the 

 earth to complete the electric circuit, instead of a return 

 wire. Of the causes that have thus delayed the introduc- 

 tion of so important a system, perhaps the most striking was 

 the fact that the invention was twenty years ago in advance 

 of the age; and again that the telegraphic profession, young 

 as it is, is far more conservative than is good for the advance 

 of telegraphy. 7 ^1,XLYIIL, 122. 



BALLOON VOYAGE FROM BUFFALO TO NEW JERSEY. 



A very interesting and in some respects remarkable bal- 

 loon ascension was made on the nio-ht of the 4th and morn- 

 ing of the 5th of July, 1874, by the well-known aeronaut 

 S. A. King, of Boston. The ascent was made at Buffalo about 

 six o'clock Saturday evening. The course of the balloon was 

 at first slightly east of south, and gradually changed more 

 to the eastward, until a landing was effected at Salem, New 

 Jersey, about seven o'clock Sunday morning, the entire dis- 

 tance traveled in thirteen hours being, in a direct line, nearly 

 350 miles. The latter part of the journey lay in the path 

 of the terrible tornado which swept over Eastern Pennsyl- 

 vania and New Jersey on the afternoon of the 4th of July, 

 and which caused great destruction of crops, etc. The bal- 

 loon employed in this trip is, with two exceptions, the larg- 

 est ever built in this country, having a capacity of 91,000 

 cubic feet. The greatest height attained above the earth's 

 surface was 9750 feet, at which elevation the temperature 

 was 68, it being then a quarter before seven in the morn- 

 ing. Coggia's comet was watched with much interest, and 

 was seen with great distinctness through the early half of 

 the night. Bosto?i Journal, July 10, 1874. 



DISASTROUS TRIP OF THE BALLOON " ZENITH." 



The disastrous termination to a balloon ascent lately un- 

 dertaken in France, in the interest of science, has attracted 

 much attention in Europe; this occurring in the case of the 

 balloon Zenith, on the 15th of April, 1875. On that date M. 

 Gaston Tissandier and M. Croce-Spinelli took passage in the 

 Zenith, which was in charge of M. Sivel, the special object 

 of the ascent being the determination of the quantity of 



