as well be on the ground, for it could not move up and
down, or be trusted to keep the gas from leaking out around the edges.
With these precautions, however, we know it is perfectly trustworthy."

"I saw it one morning early, when I was out coasting on the hill," said
Philip, "and it wasn't more than half as high as it is now."

"A great deal had been drawn off during the night and we had not been
making any more during the time to take its place."

"Does it ever get burned out too much?"

"No, there's no danger of it. We make enough to allow a good large margin
above what we expect will be used."

The children looked about a little longer, and then, with good-byes and
many thanks to Mr. Carter, walked home again with papa, over the crisp,
hard snow.

Next week Philip had a composition to write at school. He took "Gas" for
his subject, and wrote:

"Gas that you burn is made out of soft coal. They put it in Ovens
and cook it until it is not coal any longer. The Ovens are so hot
you cant go anywhare near them but the men do With poles and big
lether aprons. I would not like to shovle in the coal. I would
rather have a Balloon. They use two or three tons every day. it
makes coke and Tar and the gas that goes up the pipes. They make
the gas clean and mesure it in a big box of water, and tell how
much there is by looking at the clock faces in front. Then it goes
into a big round box made of iron and then we burn it. but I do not
like to smell of it. you must not blow it out for if you do you
will get choked. This is all I Remember about gas.

"PHILIP RAYMOND LAWRENCE."

RACING A THUNDER-STORM.

If it had been a yacht in which we were speeding along at the rate of a
trifle over a mile per minute, we should have "taken our reckoning,"
"hove the log," or done something nautical, and the captain would
doubtless have reported in regular sea-faring terms that we were off Oil
City with Lake Chautauqua so and so many knots on our port quarter.

But it wasn't a yacht, nor a schooner, nor a Conestoga wagon, lightning
express or catamaran, in which we were travelling neck and neck with one
of the wildest looking storm clouds of hot mid-summer.

No. It was--can you guess it? Yes, a _balloon_.

And this is how it all came about:

Fourth of July came upon the _fifth_ that year, (because of some strange
oversight on the part of the folks who first hit