e
sense of loneliness in such surroundings was very strong.

Experiments from the floating car have proved that the best echo is
produced by the smooth surface of a lake. Thus when the balloon was once
over a large sheet of water, the traveller called out the names of the
stars reflected on its surface. Each name was echoed back with great
clearness, as though some fairy of the lake were mocking him.

'Tell me, then,' cried the aeronaut at last, in fun, 'what the
inhabitants of these stars are like?'

But no reply was made, for the balloon had sailed beyond the margin of
the water, and his voice had fallen on the solid earth. To obtain an
echo from _that_ is more difficult.

On one occasion, wishing to find out if the balloon were rising or
falling, M. Flammarion dropped a bottle over the side of the car. To his
astonishment it stood in the air as though hanging there. It would have
been just the same if he had placed a table out there too, with a chair
beside it, and a knife and fork and plate upon it. He might have got out
himself and sat on the chair, and they would all have appeared to be
remaining still in mid-air. But as a matter of fact the bottle and the
balloon were descending to earth at exactly the same speed. This would
never do, and so a little ballast was thrown out. The bottle immediately
seem to shoot downwards, though not quite in a vertical line, for it
still moved with the impetus it had been given when thrown overboard.
Ten seconds later M. Flammarion saw it reach the earth in the centre of
a large field.

Each voyage brought the explorer some fresh surprise; but we must say
good-bye to M. Flammarion and his balloon, for his discoveries and
adventures are too many to follow. Before, however, we end these cruises
in the clouds altogether, there is time for a word or two about the many
machines which have been made in the hope of enabling men to soar in the
skies without the aid of a balloon. Attempts to do this were made long
before the Montgolfiers sent up their paper bag at Annonay, and beyond
the fact that machines have been invented which can lift themselves into
the sky, very little progress has been really made. Perhaps the most
important of these inventions are those of Professor Langley and Sir
Hiram Maxim. After many years of labour, Professor Langley of Washington
succeeded, on May 6th, 1896, in launching his flying machine from the
shores of the Potomac. The broad sails, or 'aeroplanes