StNicholas [serial] . uts have a lit-tle instrument, by which up or down motion is in-dicated, and which works by the variations in airpressure between a little chamber in the instru-ment and the outside air. But this and the otherinstruments were all in the car which had beenleft behind on the earth. Ford had no air-cham-bers except his ears, and when these commencedto sing, he knew he was very high and goinghigher. All of Fords slight stock of balloonknowledge was from a tale of Poes, some ofJules Vernes stories, and what he had picked upfrom the men as they worked about the big
StNicholas [serial] . uts have a lit-tle instrument, by which up or down motion is in-dicated, and which works by the variations in airpressure between a little chamber in the instru-ment and the outside air. But this and the otherinstruments were all in the car which had beenleft behind on the earth. Ford had no air-cham-bers except his ears, and when these commencedto sing, he knew he was very high and goinghigher. All of Fords slight stock of balloonknowledge was from a tale of Poes, some ofJules Vernes stories, and what he had picked upfrom the men as they worked about the big this, he had studied physics and knew alittle of the conditions in which he found himself. >.] FORDS TRIP ON A RUNAWAY BALLOON 307 And so when he looked to the right and left andsaw the earth a great concave bowl beneath him—the horizon seemingly on a level with his eyes,and the earth below so far, so very far away, heknew he must be very high indeed; for that is anoptical illusion which does not come at ordinary. AS HE LOOKED DOWN, HE SAW THE EARTH APPARENTLY FALLINGAWAY FROM HIM. altitudes. The landscape was now mist-blurredand indistinct, a blue-gray color, and there wereno more sounds. Ford suddenly realized that hewas chilled through and through with cold. The balloon hung still and silent above him—the cordage no longer flapped—everything wasstill as death. The balloon had passed from the cur-rent of air to a level where the air was still. Itwas so high because the lifting power which was to have carried two men, a car, some ballast, andmany things in the car, now exerted itself onlyon one boy and the netting. So it went up andup and up until the air was rare enough to bal-ance the weight—and there it hung. Ford experienced a bad cramp in one leg andshifted his position to easeit. So absorbed had he beenhe had not moved for manyminutes. The balloon wab-bled violently as he changedhis position, and sank sud-denly, which Ford realizedby the familiar sinking in hi
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Keywords: ., bookauthordodgemar, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1873
