708 Experiments 



their temperature dropped several degrees. As for me, far from 

 running any risk, I felt none of the slight discomforts of decom- 

 pression, nausea, headache, or congestion of the head, nor did I 

 feel any after leaving the apparatus. It even seemed to me as if I 

 could have gone lower yet, with no inconvenience, and I was 

 quite ready to do so, had not my steam pumps, weary with work, 

 refused to continue exhausting the air of the cylinders. Perhaps I 

 must blame the complicity of the people witnessing the experiment, 

 who frequently came and looked at me through the portholes and, 

 in spite of the quite natural appearance of my face, seemed 

 greatly terrified at seeing me exposed to this enormous diminution 

 of pressure. In fact, it corresponded to more than 8800 meters, 

 that is, an elevation greater than that which mountain travellers 

 and aeronauts, except MM. Coxwell and Glaisher, have ever been 

 able to reach. I felt no discomfort at this pressure which was 

 nearly fatal to the two brave Englishmen, and at which a few 

 months later MM. Croce-Spinelli and Sivel were to perish. 



1 See his experimental researches on the physiological properties and the uses of red blood 

 and dark blood. Journal dc la physiologic de I'homme et dcs animaux; 1858, p. 90, 101, 105. 



3 Recherches sur la composition de I'air de quelqucs mines (Annates de chimie et de 

 physique, Third series, vol. XV), 



