Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . was therefore devoted to refreshment. Suddenly our leader saidvery decidedly that we must land. We looked at the barometer—it was just before 10 oclock—and saw that we were alreadydescending very rapidly. I couldnt understand it; nobody hadtouched the valve rope. Still, the pointer on the aneroid wasturning round almost as fast as a seconds hand. Each littledivision on the aneroid meant a fall of 36 ft. We held out afeather at the end of a fishing-rod, b
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . was therefore devoted to refreshment. Suddenly our leader saidvery decidedly that we must land. We looked at the barometer—it was just before 10 oclock—and saw that we were alreadydescending very rapidly. I couldnt understand it; nobody hadtouched the valve rope. Still, the pointer on the aneroid wasturning round almost as fast as a seconds hand. Each littledivision on the aneroid meant a fall of 36 ft. We held out afeather at the end of a fishing-rod, but it floated over our heads,and our scraps of paper disappeared at once. It was quite 236 AIKSHIPS PAST AND PEE SENT. evident that we were going at a breakneck speed to theground. We threw out some of our precious ballast, but this did nogood. We came down faster than the sand, and now there wereonly five sacks of ballast left, each weighing 66 lbs. Unforfcu-tunately there came a cloud between us and the sun; thetemperature of the gas in the balloon went down quickly, andthis further helped us on our downward journey. There would. Fig. 145.—Bridge over the Iller, near Kempten.(Photograph by A. Riedinger, Augsburg.) have been no danger if we had had a little wind to carry us outinto the open, but as it was, we could hear from the soundsbelow that we were close to the town and probably directly aboveit. Soon we saw the barracks below us, and came, all at once,into the strong breeze in which we had started. I thought weshould have landed in front of my own house. But we passedover the centre of the town, and soon our guide-rope began torattle along the tops of the houses. Hold tight, said ourleader ; we felt a bump, and found that the rope had knocked aricketty chimney into the street. Soon after this the ropemanaged to coil round the telephone wires, and the only thing to BALLOONING AS A SPOKT. 237 do was to cut it off. The strain on the rope was tremendous ;why it didnt b
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