Its radiance is twice as intense as at sea-level. The aluminium became 

 heated and the frost dropped off. It began to snow in our cabin. 



Bit by bit the temperature rose. 70° F. was very pleasant. 85° was 

 bearable. But o\er 100° was too much! We sat down as low as possible 

 in the sphere, as there it ^'as coolest, but still we got very thirsty. 

 I had asked that two big bottles of water should be put in our cabin : 

 we found only one small one. Beneath the flooring with which the 

 rounded bottom of our cabin was covered, the condensed water had 

 collected : there would have been enough of it, but dust, oil and 

 mercury made it into an undrinkable emulsion. Luckily Kipfer dis- 

 covered a spring: fresh water, clean and distilled, flowed along the 

 wall, on the shady side : there was not much of it, but it sufficed to wet 

 our tongues from time to time. I found something even better : when 

 we poured liquid oxygen into an aluminium goblet and waited for the 

 oxygen to evaporate a thick layer of frost was formed outside. But 

 it was so cold it burnt to the touch, for it was formed at - 350° F. : 

 we had to wait a bit until its temperature was that of melting ice. 



12.30 p.m., the sun at its zenith. At last the entire cabin came into 

 the shadow of the balloon ; and the temperature sank. One side of the 

 cabin was painted black, the other being left bright. I had intended, 

 by making the balloon turn round, to regulate the temperature, since 

 black absorbs more heat than a bright metal : but the motor intended 

 to bring about this rotation had been damaged at the time of departure : 

 the whole morning it was the black side which had been exposed to 

 the sun. During the afternoon the balloon turned round : and so we 

 no longer had to suffer from the heat. 



Towards two o'clock in the afternoon we began to descend very 

 slightly. But a rapid calculation showed us that at this rate we should 

 take fifteen days to get down ! As a precaution, we decreased the outlet 

 from our oxygen apparatus and we kept as still as possible so as not 

 to turn too great a quantity of this precious gas into carbon dioxide. 



3 p.m. The speed of descent is more marked. However, it would 

 still take twenty-four hours at this rate to land. All the same the 

 descent is getting faster : that is the essential thing. 



4 p.m. 5 p.m. 6 p.m.! The hours are passing. We are crossing the 

 Bavarian Alps. The sun is going down. The balloon, now colder, 

 descends faster and faster. 



8 p.m. Altitude 7-^ miles. At last we had left the stratosphere. By 

 the fog which suddenly covered the distant horizon we saw that we 



[13] 



