nd Spain, with a
small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of
individual edifices not a trace could be found, and the proudest cities
of mankind had utterly faded away from the surface of the earth.

At a quarter-past eight, being able no longer to draw breath without the
most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car
the apparatus belonging to the condenser. I had prepared a very strong,
perfectly air-tight gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which was of
sufficient size, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is to say,
the bag was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides and so
on, up to the upper rim where the net-work is attached. Having pulled up
the bag and made a complete inclosure on all sides, I was shut in an
air-tight chamber.

In the sides of this covering had been inserted three circular panes of
thick but clear glass, through which I could see without difficulty
around me in every horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth
forming the bottom was a fourth window corresponding with a small
aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see straight
down, but I had been unable to fix a similar window above me and so I
could expect to see no objects directly overhead.

The condensing apparatus was connected with the outer air by a tube to
admit air at one end and by a valve at the bottom of the car to eject
foul air. By the time I had completed these arrangements and filled the
chamber with condensed air by means of the apparatus, it wanted only ten
minutes of nine o'clock. During the whole period of my being thus
employed, I endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of
respiration, and bitterly did I repent the foolhardiness of which I had
been guilty in putting off to the last moment a matter of so much
importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began to reap
the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom
and ease--and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised to
find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent pains which
had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache, accompanied by a sensation
of fulness about the wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all
of which I had now to complain.

At twenty minutes before nine o'clock, the mercury attained its limit, or
ran down, in the barometer. The instrument then indicated an altitude of
twenty-five mile