voyagers ascended for the first time, and placed themselves in a
position like that of a natural philosopher, who, without previous
practice, should undertake to drive a locomotive, with its train on a
railway at fifty miles an hour, rejecting the humble but indispensable
aid of an experienced engine-driver.

The necessary preparations having been made, and the programme and the
instruments prepared, it was resolved to make the ascent from the garden
behind the Observatory at Paris, a plateau of some elevation, and free
from buildings and other obstacles, at day-break of Saturday, the 29th
June. At midnight the balloon was brought to the spot, but the inflation
was not completed until nearly 10 o'clock, A.M.

It has since been proved that the balloon was old and worn, and that it
ought not to have been supplied for such an occasion.

It was obviously patched, and it is now known that two seamstresses were
employed during the preceding day in mending it, and some stitching even
was found necessary after it had arrived at the Observatory.

The net-work which included and supported the car was new, and not
originally made with a view to the balloon it inclosed, the consequences
of which will be presently seen.

The night, between Friday and Saturday, was one of continual rain, and
the balloon and its netting became thoroughly saturated with moisture.
By the time the inflation had been completed, it became evident that the
net-work was too small; but in the anxiety to carry into effect the
project, the consequences of this were most unaccountably overlooked. We
say unaccountably, because it is extremely difficult to conceive how
experimental philosophers and practiced observers, like MM. Arago and
Regnault, to say nothing of numerous subordinate scientific agents who
were present, did not anticipate what must have ensued in the upper
regions of the air. Nevertheless, such was the fact.

On the morning of Saturday, the instruments being duly deposited in the
car, the two enterprising voyagers placed themselves in it, and the
balloon, which previously had been held down by the strength of twenty
men, was liberated, and left to plunge into the ocean of air, at
twenty-seven minutes after ten o'clock.

The weather, as we have already stated, was unfavorable, the sky being
charged with clouds. As it was the purpose of this project to examine
much higher regions of the atmosphere than those which it had been
customary for