68 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



scarcely perceived to move; till at length, at the altitude of nearly 

 six thousand feet, it became perfectly motionless, and so remained 

 for almost a quarter of an hour. Dr.Forster describes the sensation, 

 at this period, to be most delightful ; — balanced in the air, under 

 a floating and inflated bag, in a perfectly calm and tranquil region, 

 among the grotesque forms of evaporating clouds, and viewing in 

 delicious tranquillity a vast and apparently concave panorama of 

 country, bounded on one side by the sea, and everywhere inter- 

 spersed with towns and villages, and the yellow and varied tint of 

 the fields, the aerial travellers enjoyed a temporary repose from 

 the noise and bustle of the world, which is seldom felt on the sur- 

 face of the earth. More ballast being thrown out, the balloon 

 again rose, and Dr. Forster now felt a disagreeable sensation, like 

 pressure on the tympanum of the ears, just like what Garnerin, 

 MM. Charles and Roberts, and others have described ; in conse- 

 quence of which he determined to open the valve, and they rapidly 

 descended again into an inferior current, which carried them to 

 Broomfield, where they eventually landed at twenty minutes before 

 seven o'clock. 



During, and subsequently to this aerial voyage. Dr. Forster made 

 and recorded the following observations : 



1st. That the balloon, when rising gently, gyrated in the same di- 

 rection as the earth and planets do in their diurnal rotatory motion, 

 that is from right to left : this motion was however so gentle, that 

 it was only to be ascertained by observing objects below ; in coming 

 down the balloon oscillated in the same direction. 



2ndly. The currents of air which they successively met with in 

 ascending, came down during the next day in the same order 

 of succession: the S.W. wind for example, into which they got, 

 came down first on the following morning, and brought the rain. 

 From repeated experiments, Dr. Forster has reason to believe this 

 to be the case with most of the upper currents of air. 



Srdly. The wavy cirrocumulus clouds are far beyond the reach 

 of all balloons, and even when the clouds are seen from the greatest 

 altitudes they seem as much above the ordinary clouds as they do 

 above the earth. 



4thly. Dr.Forster in comparing his elevation in the balloon to what 

 he recollects of his Alpine ascents over the high Swiss mountains, is 

 induced to account for the less degree, and in his own case absence, 

 of giddiness experienced in balloons, to the idea of complete insula- 

 tion : as when a person hangs over precipices, or sits on pinnacles, 

 the notion of unsafe terrestrial attachment is the cause of the giddi- 

 ness. Dr. Forster noticed, during the voyage, the manner in which 

 clouds subside in an evening : he has also made some observations 

 on the peculiar effects produced by different circumstances of sail- 

 ing in boats at sea, and has compared them with those produced by 

 aerial floating, which he purposes, before long, to communicate to 

 the public; as also some physiological observations on the sea sick- 

 ness which some persons feel ; and on the very peculiar deafness 

 experienced at great elevations, in diving bells, in mines, and on 



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