B. TERRESTRIAL PHYSICS AND METEOROLOGY. 97 



the earth was but 2300 feet. After remaining at this low 

 level for an liour, a very rapid ascent was. secnred by throw- 

 ing out ballast, until a height of 8800 feet was reached short- 

 ly before sunset. The last observation of the barometer 

 made by daylight was at half-past six, when the altitude was 

 3600 feet, and the balloon still traveling in an easterly di- 

 rection, and from this time until the landing the course was 

 pursued quietly, without any incidents worthy of note. The 

 wind at that time was moving only at the rate of about six 

 miles an hour, and the aeronauts landed near the village of 

 Corning, X. Y., having traveled almost exactly one hundred 

 miles in the course of four hours. A series of observations 

 of the barometer and thermometer were made at regular in- 

 tervals of two minutes, so long as daylight lasted, by Mr. L. 

 L. Holden, who has accompanied Mr. King on twenty similar 

 excursions, at most of which he has endeavored to assist Mr. 

 King in his attemj^ts to utilize these balloon voyages for the 

 furtherance of meteorology. Neio York Herald, September 

 19, 1873. 



THE GREAT NOVA SCOTIA ST0R:\I. 



The terrible destruction of life and property that attended 

 the great storm in Nova Scotia on the 24th and 2oth of Au- 

 gust has led to a careful examination of the accounts of the 

 weather found in the logjs of the various vessels at that time 

 sailing along the eastern shore of the United States, and it 

 seems certain that this storm was a true cyclone of large di- 

 mensions, and that its destructive force was experienced, not 

 only in Kova Scotia, but equally so on the ocean during the 

 week previous. The accounts of the weather experienced 

 by the steamer Hamnionia show that the storm passed from 

 Nova Scotia northeastward toward Iceland, while, on the 

 other hand, the records of the vessels of the United States 

 Atlantic squadron show that the cyclone already existed in 

 all its fury on the 17th and 18th of August, at which time it 

 was passing in a northwesterly direction, about midway be- 

 tween the Bermudas and the West Indies. Reports are con- 

 tinually coming in of .vessels lost or disabled on being drawn 

 into the centre of the revolving storm ; and it is a remarkable 

 commentary upon the state of the science of navigation that 

 there has as yet been found but one sea captain who, pos- 



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