juncture, very imprudently and without
consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of
ballast. The increased rate of ascent thus obtained carried me too
rapidly into a highly rarefied layer of atmosphere, and the result
nearly proved fatal to my expedition and myself. I was suddenly seized
with a spasm, which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
this in a measure ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
intervals, and in a gasping manner--bleeding all the while copiously at
the nose and ears and even slightly at the eyes.

The cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth,
staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of poison. I
now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had been guilty in
discharging my ballast, and my agitation was excessive. I expected
nothing less than death, and death in a few minutes. I lay down in the
bottom of the car and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so
far succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.
Having no lancet, I was obliged to open a vein in my arm with the blade
of a penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced
a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a basin-full
most of the worst symptoms were gone. The difficulty of breathing,
however, was diminished in a very slight degree, and I found that it
would be soon positively necessary to make use of my condenser.

By eight o'clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen miles
above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident that my
rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the progress would
have been apparent to a slight extent even had I not discharged the
ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears returned at intervals
and with violence, and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the
nose; but upon the whole I suffered much less than might have been
expected. I now unpacked the condensing apparatus and got it ready for
immediate use.

The view of the earth at this period of my ascension was beautiful
indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as I
could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean, which
every moment gained a deeper and deeper tint of blue. At a vast distance
to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of
Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France a