308 SCIENTIFIC BALLOONING. 



The like task of rudimentary research was now transferred to France, 

 but with more method, and Gay Lussac got up into regions not less 

 than 4 miles above the earth, where, among other things, he bottled off 

 air, and bringing it down to his laboratory, examined and declared it 

 unaltered. About this time, also, some meteorological observations of 

 interest were carried out during ascents which were creditable if only 

 for the altitudes attained. But the crowning enterprise of this period 

 was the famous Nassau voyage of the immortal three who in the year 

 1836 made a night journey from London to the heart of Germany by an 

 untried way, and in the face of such risks and chances as of their kind 

 had never before been confronted. 



The undertaking was due to the enterprise of the leader, Mr. Eobert 

 Hollond, its successful issue to the skill of an aeronaut, Mr. Charles 

 Green, while the record of the night's adventure is graphically recorded 

 by the chronicler of the party, Mr. Monck-Mason. Doubtless aerial 

 navigation received a great impetus from an exploit of such daring, and 

 it will be hardly out of place to give one example of such incidents as 

 the night brought with it, which will serve to show the lack of experi- 

 ence and knowledge of the craft then existing. 



It was about'3.30 in the early morning when their balloon, which had 

 recently been lightened by a discharge of ballast, was suddenly found 

 to have attained the unexpected height of 12,000 feet. At the same 

 moment, while all around was wrapped in the very darkness and still- 

 ness of death, just above them came the sound of an explosion, followed 

 by the rustling of the silk, and a moment later the car received a 

 violent jerk. The party held their breath, while the same thing hap- 

 pened a second and a third time, and then all was still. At this 

 they were seized with the conviction that away up in that awful region, 

 in the dead of night, the balloon had burst and that they were falling 

 headlong to the earth. The explanation, unknown to them at the time, 

 was this: When flying low the balloon had contracted and elongated, 

 and its moisture-laden net must have frozen round it hard as steel. 

 Then on its rising and swelling out again into its globular shape, the 

 frozen ropes had bent to their new position with a crack and a bang, 

 and jerked the car in so doing. 



No real mishap occurred, the famous voyage being as successful as 

 it was daring; aDd from that time onwards we may transfer our sole 

 attention to English enterprise, and in particular to the famous career 

 presently to be borne in partnership by Messrs. Glaisher and Cox well. 



If Tennyson was a born poet, Cox well was born an aeronaut. He 

 could not exist in auy other path of life, and in the very face of fortune 

 quickly took first rank in his profession; while Mr. Glaisher, from early 

 years a trained observer and blessed with a zeal and perseverance sel- 

 dom equaled, literally threw his life into ballooning ventures in the 

 cause of science. His review of the task he undertook, its difficulties, 

 and at the same time its possibilities, is a commentary on his working 



