SCIENTIFIC BALLOONING. 317 



eclipse or shower of meteors, too often hid from the observer below, 

 can hardly escape the view of the voyager above the clouds. It is even 

 reasonable, indeed, to hope that the corona may be photographed 

 without eclipse. 



Some little special training, no doubt, is needed in the observer 

 himself. He has to grow accustomed to the somewhat cramped 

 quarters within which he is confined; not less to the novelty of the 

 situation and to the fact that his observatory seldom remains for a 

 single moment in any one position. He learns only by experience not 

 to encumber himself with superfluous apparatus and not to attempt 

 too much or too varied work on any one voyage. It is noteworthy, too, 

 how much incongruity is found in the experiences of different indi- 

 viduals. To one, on ascending, the earth will seem to recede from 

 beneath and hollow itself out, as it were, into a basin bounded only by 

 the horizon. To another no optical illusion is noticeable, and the earth, 

 from all considerable heights, will appear only as a dead level. With 

 many, but by no means all, aerial travelers, when rapidly ascending 

 or descending, there may be a certain feeling of distress in the ears, 

 interfering more or less with the sense of hearing, but transient and 

 generally relieved by the mere act of swallowing. 



On clear days, as higher altitudes are reached, all voyagers will be 

 conscious of such sensations as are experienced on mountain heights, 

 the fierce rays of the sun appearing almost capable of blistering the 

 skin, even though the air grow very sensibly colder. There will be few, 

 also, who will not own to a great exhilaration of spirits, which renders 

 the task of concentrating the mind on strict observational work some- 

 what difficult and irksome. Some striking feature of the shifting pano- 

 rama, some opening fairy scene in the heavenly glories of cloudland, will 

 almost irresistibly divert the attention. 



It is sad, indeed, that these indescribable beauties do not lend 

 themselves readily to photography and can never be done justice to 

 by artist's brush. With the startling suddenness of a transformation 

 scene there will sometimes burst on the view a vision of aerial Alps ot 

 purest snow and limitless in range; towering mountains and deep 

 ravines, rocks with yawning chasms, giving place to true castles in the 

 air with frowning battlements, dissolving in their turn into forests of 

 towers, domes, and spires, and all the while the beholder is conscious 

 that this is not illusion, but a reality of his new home, and that for the 

 time he himself is a naturalized inhabitant of the sky. 



Later on fresh conditions unknown on earth will commonly prevail. 

 The sun, hastening to the west, seems loath to withdraw his warmth, 

 and as the distance becomes swallowed up in gloom and shades grow 

 darker beneath there is the feeling that the rawness of evening is 

 absent, and the night grows genial instead of chill. 



One special peculiarity in daylight ascents, always more or less 

 pronounced, has to be reckoned with in taking photographs or making 



