ove his head. In order to quicken our
ascent I discharged a parachute made of silk, and weighted in a way to
prevent oscillations. The parachute descended at the rate of two feet
per second, and its descent was uniform. From the moment when the
barometer began to sink we became very careful of our ballast, as we
wished to test from experience the different temperatures through which
we were about to pass.

"At 10.15, the barometer was at nineteen inches, and the thermometer
at three above zero. We now felt all the inconvenience of an extremely
rarefied atmosphere coming upon us, and we commenced to arrange some
experiments in atmospheric electricity. Our first attempts did not
succeed. We threw over part of our ballast, and mounted up till the
cold and the rarefaction of the air became very troublesome. During
our experiments we experienced an illness throughout our whole system.
Buzzing in the cars commenced, and went on increasing. The pain we felt
was like that which one feels when he plunges his head in water. Our
chests seemed to be dilated, and failed in elasticity. My pulse was
quickened, M. Lhoest's became slower; he had, like me, swelled lips and
bleeding eyes; the veins seemed to come out more strongly on the hands.
The blood ran to the head, and occasioned a feeling as if our hats were
too tight. The thermometer continued to descend, and, as we ascended,
our illness increased, and we could with difficulty keep awake. Fearing
that my travelling companion might go to sleep, I attached a cord to my
thigh and to his, and we held the extremities of the cord in our hands.
Thus trammelled, we had to commence the experiments which I had proposed
to make.

"At this elevation, the glass, the brimstone, and the Spanish wax were
not electrified in a manner to show any signs under friction--at least,
I obtained no electricity from the conductors or the electrometer.

"I had in my car a voltaic pile, consisting of sixty couples--silver
and zinc. It worked very well on the occasion of our departure from the
earth, and gave, without the condenser, one degree to the electrometer.
At our great elevation, the pile gave only five-sixths of a degree to
the same electrometer. The galvanic flame seemed more active at this
elevation than on the earth.

"I took two birds with me on coming into the balloon--one of these was
now dead, the other appeared stupefied. After having placed it upon the
brink of the gondola, I tried to fri