elt more
comfortable or more delighted in my life,' presently adding, 'Well, now
I think I shall leave you.' I answered, 'I wish you a very "Good Night!"
and a safe descent if you are determined to make it and not use the
tackle' (a contrivance for enabling him to retreat up into the balloon
if he desired). Mr. Cocking's only reply was, 'Good-night, Spencer;
Good-night, Green!' Mr. Cocking then pulled the rope that was to
liberate himself, but too feebly, and a moment afterwards more
violently, and in an instant the balloon shot upwards with the velocity
of a sky rocket. The effect upon us at this moment was almost beyond
description. The immense machine which suspended us between heaven and
earth, whilst it appeared to be forced upwards with terrific violence
and rapidity through unknown and untravelled regions amidst the howlings
of a fearful hurricane, rolled about as though revelling in a freedom
for which it had long struggled, but of which until that moment it had
been kept in utter ignorance. It, at length, as if somewhat fatigued by
its exertions, gradually assumed the motions of a snake working its way
with extraordinary speed towards a given object. During this frightful
operation the gas was rushing in torrents from the upper and lower
valve, but more particularly from the latter, as the density of the
atmosphere through which we were forcing our progress pressed so
heavily on the valve at the top of the balloon as to admit of but a
comparatively small escape by this aperture. At this juncture, had it
not been for the application to our mouths of two pipes leading into an
air bag, with which we had furnished ourselves previous to starting,
we must within a minute have been suffocated, and so, but by different
means, have shared the melancholy fate of our friend. This bag was
formed of silk, sufficiently capacious to contain 100 gallons of
atmospheric air. Prior to our ascent, the bag was inflated with the
assistance of a pair of bellows with fifty gallons of air, so allowing
for any expansion which might be produced in the upper regions. Into the
end of this bag were introduced two flexible tubes, and the moment we
felt ourselves to be going up in the manner just described, Mr. Spencer,
as well as myself, placed either of them in our mouths. By this simple
contrivance we preserved ourselves from instantaneous suffocation, a
result which must have ensued from the apparently endless volume of
gas with which the