Wonderful ballon ascents : or, The conquest of the skies A history of balloons and balloon voyages . of his vesselwas broken by the infuriated Dupont de Chambon. Yetthe aeronaut pretends to have been, to some extent,assisted by his mechanical contrivances. The following ishis narrative :— I rose to a certain height over Plassy, and perceivingVillette, which I did not despair of reaching in spite of themisfortune that had happened to me, I attached a rope ofmy rigging to my leg, not being able to make use of myleft hand, which I had wrapped in my handkerchief on accountof the sword-wound it had
Wonderful ballon ascents : or, The conquest of the skies A history of balloons and balloon voyages . of his vesselwas broken by the infuriated Dupont de Chambon. Yetthe aeronaut pretends to have been, to some extent,assisted by his mechanical contrivances. The following ishis narrative :— I rose to a certain height over Plassy, and perceivingVillette, which I did not despair of reaching in spite of themisfortune that had happened to me, I attached a rope ofmy rigging to my leg, not being able to make use of myleft hand, which I had wrapped in my handkerchief on accountof the sword-wound it had received. I fixed up a piece of(loth, and thus made a sort of sail with which I hugged thewind. But the rays of the sun had so heated and rarefiedthe inflammable air that soon I forgot my rigging in think-ing of the terrible danger that threatened me. Going on to narrate the dangers that beset him, Blan-chard describes a number of most extraordinary experiences,which would be better worthy of a place here if they weremore like the truth. His curious narrative is thus broughtto a close :—?. H2; ku aa EXPERIMENTS AND STUDIES. 109 Escaped from these impetuous and contrary winds,during which I had felt a great degree of cold, I mountedperpendicularly. The cold became excessive. Being hungryI ate a morsel of cake. I wished to drink, but in searchingthe car nothing was to be seen but the debris of bottles andglasses, which my assailant had left behind him when wewere about to depart. Afterwards all was so calm thatnothing could be seen or heard. The silence became appal-ling, and to add to my alarm I began to lose now wished to take snuff, but found I had left my boxbehind me. I changed my seat many times ; I went fromprow to stern, but the drowsiness only ceased to assail mewhen I was struck by two furious winds, which compressedmy balloon to such an extent that its size became sensiblydiminished to the eye. I was not sorry when I began todescend rapidly upon th
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Keywords: ., bookauthormarionfu, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1870
