974 . Summary and Conclusions 



dangers, without speaking of the enemy's bullets, spreading in the 

 provinces the news which mitigated the anguish of separation, bear- 

 ing with them the energetic emotion, the unconquerable resolution 

 of the great city to do its duty to the end. So, I dare say, and who 

 will contradict me — when the news spread that two men had died 

 in a balloon, Paris recalled these hours of pain and hope, France 

 trembled, and all hearts throbbed as they used to throb when someone 

 told us that a balloon had landed, that someone had seen a balloon 

 in the air. 



And so this double death, which seemed as if it were impressed 

 with a strange and mournful poetry, as if lighted up by the halo of 

 science, awoke again memories of the purest patriotism. Is not that 

 enough to explain why it has aroused in all France a feeling so keen, 

 so universal, so lasting? 







The emotion of men of science was especially manifested on the 

 one hand by notes and memoirs attempting to explain the death of 

 the two aeronauts, on the other by inventions intended to prevent 

 henceforth such terrible catastrophes. I am forced to state that 

 nothing said or imagined on this subject deserves to be reproduced 

 here. From the theoretical point of view, they are only new edi- 

 tions of old ideas, already condemned, whose strange series we 

 have already listed in our history; for this particular case there has 

 been added the toxic effect of illuminating gas escaping in floods 

 from the balloon, which had been too rapidly dilated, and poison- 

 ing the aeronauts. The protecting inventions are worth just as 

 much as the theories which inspired their authors. Most of them 

 speak of divers' suits, glass cages, closed baskets, with confined or 

 compressed air, artificial atmospheres, sources of oxygen, etc.; but 

 nothing which was proposed so seriously is as good as the charm- 

 ing mystification of the "Journey to the Moon" and M. Jules Verne 

 will excuse me for not discussing it here. 



Dr. Stoliczka, a geologist well known for important works on 

 the mountains of India, had in 1864 crossed many passes above 5000 

 meters in the Himalayas; he had had there "a horrible experience" 18 

 of fatigues and mountain sickness, and had regained health very 

 slowly. In June, 1874, he left with an English mission commanded 

 by Lieutenant Colonel Gordon, and died suddenly June 19, at the 

 age of 34, three days after having crossed Karakorum. The details 

 of his death given by the letters of Lieut. Col. Gordon and Capt. 

 Trutter 19 seem to indicate that the fatal effect of rarefied air played 

 an important part in the death oil the unfortunate geologist. 



I give here the letter of Capt Trutter, the most interesting and 

 the most complete: 



