1895 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



79 



conception of what was best to do. I 

 ■was frightened for him, for when the 

 bag of a balloon turns too much the gas 

 begins to escape rapidly, and the results 

 are likely to be serious. I knew that 

 voices could be heard a long way in the 

 air, for I had often heard people a mile 

 below me shouting, so without know- 

 ing how far the two balloons were apart 

 I decided to hail the other one. I gath- 

 ered all my breath and shouted: 



" 'Hello, hello, hellol' 



"Then I turned my glass on the other 

 balloon again. Up where the air is so 

 clear as it is a mile above the earth one 

 can see at great distances with wonder- 

 ful distinctness. Through my glass I 

 could see Mr. White start and look all 

 around him. That was quite awhile aft- 

 er I had shouted. He didn't seem to un- 

 derstand where the voice came from, 

 but finally I saw him put his hands to 

 his mouth, evidently making a speaking 

 trumpet of them. I waited and waited 

 and was just about to shout again when 

 the huge gasbag above me began to 

 thrill with sounds. They seemed to buzz 

 along its sides and diffuse the air, only 

 to collect and come whirring and rum- 

 bling down the funnel to be poured into 

 my ears, and they formed in a tone that 

 seemed made up of a million other 

 tones: 



" 'Hellol Where — are — you?' 



"It was the most peculiar sound I had 

 ever heard. When it had scattered itself 

 into silence, I took out my watch, and 

 timing myself shouted: 



" 'Throw out one sandbag. I'll come 

 to you!' 



"Forty seconds later my balloon be- 

 gan to vibrate again, finally forming 

 the words: 



" 'All right. In trouble 1' 



"There was method in my telling 

 him to throw out the sandbag, as it 

 was afterward of use. I threw out a 

 number myself, for I reckoned that a 

 little above me I would find a current 

 to carry me toward Mr. White. This I 

 did and was soon within a short dis- 

 tance of him, aerially considered. The 

 trouble with his balloon was a slight 

 disarrangement of the ropes, .which I 

 had myself experienced, so I told him 

 what to do, and he was soon all right. 

 As I explained to him when we reached 

 the earth, we had been talking over an 

 aerial telephone, the gasbags being the 



omy material oDjects up tnere collecting 

 all the sounds and acting as huge receiv- 

 ers. ' ' 



" 'Well, ' said he, 'you got me out of 

 a very bad scrape, but I never was so 

 scared in my life as when that voice 

 surrounded me. I thought the balloon 

 was talking, and that I had gone crazy. 



" 'It was a pretty long talk,' said I, 

 'for, allowing the voice to travel five 

 seconds to a mile by my timing, we must 

 have been close to four miles apart.' 



" 'That's simply impossible, ' said he. 



" 'Very well,' I sajd. 'That's why I 

 told you to drop that sandbag. I threw 

 some out, too, and we can find out how 

 far they landed apart. 



"It wasn't much trouble to find peo- 

 ple who had found the bags and knew 

 just where they were. Fortunately they 

 had lauded near a railroad track, so the 

 distance estimating was made -easy for 

 us. It was 4^4 miles. I guess that is the 

 record up to date for long distance talk- 

 ing without a wire." 



His Names. 



A pair of twins was born in the Back 

 Bay district. A bright boy set about to 

 try to name them. He said, "Will they 

 be called Peter and Repeater?" But no. 

 His mother would not listen to the 

 name Peter. Then he said, "Let them 

 be called Max and Climax." 



"No, " she said. "They are both little 

 girls, so we cannot name one of them 

 Max." 



Then he said after much thought, 

 "Let them be called Kate and Dupli- 

 cate. " After that his head was band- 

 aged, and he was sent out to play. — 

 Union Signal. 



Robert Burns. 



It is amusing to learn that Burns, 

 when jn.st emerging from obscurity, 

 jocularly anticijiated that his birthday 

 would come to be noted among other re- 

 markable events. In a letter to his early 

 patron, Gavin Hamilton, in 1786, he 

 says: "For my own affairs I am in a 

 fair way of becoming as eminent as 

 Thomas a Kempis or John Bunyan, and 

 you may henceforth expect to see my 

 birthday inscribed among the wonder- 

 ful events in the Poor Robin and Aber- 

 deen Almanacks along with the Black 

 Monday and the battle of Bothwell 

 Bridge." — Philadelphia Ledger. 



