ler and merging into the blue sky behind it. I was
safe out of the deadly jungle of the outer air.

"Once out of danger I throttled my engine, for nothing tears a machine to
pieces quicker than running on full power from a height. It was a
glorious spiral vol-plane from nearly eight miles of altitude--first, to
the level of the silver cloud-bank, then to that of the storm-cloud
beneath it, and finally, in beating rain, to the surface of the earth. I
saw the Bristol Channel beneath me as I broke from the clouds, but,
having still some petrol in my tank, I got twenty miles inland before I
found myself stranded in a field half a mile from the village of
Ashcombe. There I got three tins of petrol from a passing motor-car, and
at ten minutes past six that evening I alighted gently in my own home
meadow at Devizes, after such a journey as no mortal upon earth has ever
yet taken and lived to tell the tale. I have seen the beauty and I have
seen the horror of the heights--and greater beauty or greater horror than
that is not within the ken of man.

"And now it is my plan to go once again before I give my results to the
world. My reason for this is that I must surely have something to show
by way of proof before I lay such a tale before my fellow-men. It is
true that others will soon follow and will confirm what I have said, and
yet I should wish to carry conviction from the first. Those lovely
iridescent bubbles of the air should not be hard to capture. They drift
slowly upon their way, and the swift monoplane could intercept their
leisurely course. It is likely enough that they would dissolve in the
heavier layers of the atmosphere, and that some small heap of amorphous
jelly might be all that I should bring to earth with me. And yet
something there would surely be by which I could substantiate my story.
Yes, I will go, even if I run a risk by doing so. These purple horrors
would not seem to be numerous. It is probable that I shall not see one.
If I do I shall dive at once. At the worst there is always the shot-gun
and my knowledge of . . ."

Here a page of the manuscript is unfortunately missing. On the next page
is written, in large, straggling writing:--

"Forty-three thousand feet. I shall never see earth again. They are
beneath me, three of them. God help me; it is a dreadful death to die!"

Such in its entirety is the Joyce-Armstrong Statement. Of the man
nothing has since been seen. Pieces of his