BALLOONING. 



BAPTISTS. 



187 





370 to 340, air being 1,000), a height of six 

 miles is unattainable. At 3-3^ miles the body 

 of gas admitted at the earth will double its vol- 

 ume ; hence, in order to reach 6 or 7 miles, a 

 volume of gas that at the earth fills not more 

 than | of the capacity of the balloon must suffice 

 to raise its entire weight, including ballast 

 enough to regulate the descent, and prevent 

 the necessity of landing until an exactly suit- 

 able spot is found. With a balloon of such 

 size, arid with a view to an entirely safe de- 

 scent. Mr. Glaisher found it desirable to re- 

 serve for such purpose 5-600 Ibs. of ballast : 

 as this ballast must be carried to the greatest 

 altitude reached, it becomes another condition 

 limiting the elevation attainable in practice. 

 To say nothing, therefore, of the question as to 

 how great may be the actual increase of cold 

 at heights greater than those yet reached, nor 

 as to whether the buoyant power of the air 

 would not have sunk too low for the density 

 of any gas that could be used to fill the bal- 

 loon, the banter oifered by another aeronaut, 

 since the publication of the above results, to 

 accompany Mr. Glaisher to a height of 11 

 miles, must be regarded as idle in view of the 

 inevitable conditions under which it appears 

 that balloons must be constructed and worked. 

 Again, it was found in the voyages above de- 

 scribed, that very great altitude and an extended 

 flight in distance are results that cannot both 

 be secured at the same time. In no instance 

 did the balloon keep to very great altitudes 

 more than an extremely brief period ; that this 

 was not owing to leakage, would seem proved 

 by its satisfactorily holding its charge over 

 night, between the ascents of Aug. 20 and 21. 

 Mr. Glaisher thinks the roaring sound, as of a 

 hurricane, spoken of by some aeronauts, and 

 ascribed by them to opposing upper currents 

 of air. could in no way result from the cause 

 supposed, and may have been due to the flapping 

 about of the lower part of the partially collaps- 

 ed balloon during rapid descent. Beyond this 

 the most that he observed was a slight whining 

 noise in the netting, at times when the balloon 

 was mounting upward with great rapidity. He 

 remarks that the theory of a settled wind at 

 considerable heights to eastward or southeast- 

 ward [query to N. E. ?], and as he thinks too 

 readily accepted, was not confirmed in these 

 trips. Nor was the upper surface of the fields 

 of cloud, above which at times the balloon 

 stood, such as required by a somewhat current 

 supposition to the effect that the upper cloud- 

 surface is a counterpart of the earth's surface 

 below, rising and falling in the same parts as 

 does the latter, in hills and valleys. 



It was inferred that the diminished pressure 

 of the air at great heights exercises a very dif- 

 ferent influence on different individuals, prob- 

 ably through diversity of temperament and 

 organization, and in fact also, on the same per- 

 son at different times. The trials made ap- 

 peared to establish it as a fact that, up to 3 miles 

 high, observations, even of a delicate nature, 



can be made as comfortably and accurately in 

 a balloon as on the earth ; while at heights ex- 

 ceeding 4 miles they cannot be made quite so 

 well, because of the personal distress of the ob- 

 server ; and at 5 miles it requires the exercise 

 of a strong will to make them at all. Up to 3 

 miles any person of ordinary self-possession 

 may safely ascend in the car ; but no person 

 with pulmonary complaints or heart-disease 

 should attempt the height of 4 miles ; and it 

 maybe added that [at least outside the tropics] 

 5 miles above the sea-level is very nearly the 

 limit of human existence. But all the conclu- 

 sions relative to the making of valuable scien- 

 tific observations, proceed upon the supposition 

 that the balloon is intelligently and skilfully 

 managed. In fact, it was Mr. Glaishers per- 

 ception of the skill of his assistant, of his great 

 familiarity with his business (attained during 

 more than 400 ascents previously made), and of 

 his presence of mind, that served to inspire in 

 himself that feeling of entire confidence and se- 

 curity requisite to the proper discharge of his 

 duties in the way of observation. 



The wellnigh fatal termination, however, of 

 the trip of Sept. 5, served to call out from Mr. 

 Isaac Ashe, at a recent meeting of the British 

 Association, the proposition of a simple con- 

 trivance, by means of which the opening of 

 the escape valve, through action of a weight 

 attached to its rope, should when desirable on 

 the part of the aeronaut be made to depend on 

 a relaxation of his voluntary effort ; so that in 

 the event of insensibility supervening at great 

 altitudes, the spontaneous opening of the valve 

 should at once secure a descent into lower 

 strata of air, the higher temperature of which 

 would be expected to restore the luckless na- 

 vigator to consciousness. 



An attempt is being made in France to rein- 

 troduce the employment of the Montgolfier 

 balloon, or that elevated by heated air. Some 

 balloonists have even declared these safer and 

 more easily managed than those inflated with 

 what is now the most usual material coal gas. 

 M. Goddard, an aeronaut attached to the French 

 army, recently ascended from the Pr6 Catalan 

 in a Montgolfier balloon, of a capacity of 4,000 

 cubic metres. This was inflated in less than 

 half an hour, the fuel being compressed cakes of 

 rye straw. A successful descent was made, 

 after a journey of 26 minutes, near Maisons. 

 _ BAPTISTS. The Baptist family of Chris- 

 tian denominations embraces all those which 

 hold that immersion is the only true form of 

 baptism, and that adults are the only fit sub- 

 jects. There are in the United States 8 different 

 denominations with these distinctive views, 

 viz. : the Regular Baptists, with 1,109,343 com- 

 municants in North America ; the Anti-Mission 

 Baptists, with 60,000 communicants : the Free- 

 Will Baptists, with 58,055 communicants ; the 

 Six-Principle Baptists, with 8.000 communi- 

 cants; the Seventh-Day Baptists, with 6,686 

 members ; the Church of God CWinebren- 

 narians), with 14,000 communicants ; the Disci- 



