ce, and his cheeks were as
chubby as his son's.

This discussion of old ideas should not be closed without mention of a
plausible plea for the balloon made by Wise and others on the score of
its value to health. Lofty ascents have proved a strain on even robust
constitutions--the heart may begin to suffer, or ills akin to mountain
sickness may intervene before a height equal to that of our loftiest
mountain is reached. But many have spoken of an exhilaration of spirits
not inferior to that of the mountaineer, which is experienced,
and without fatigue, in sky voyages reasonably indulged in--of a
light-heartedness, a glow of health, a sharpened appetite, and the keen
enjoyment of mere existence. Nay, it has been seriously affirmed that
"more good may be got by the invalid in an hour or two while two miles
up on a fine summer's day than is to be gained in an entire voyage from
New York to Madeira by sea."

CHAPTER X. THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA.

Resuming the roll of progressive aeronauts in England whose labours
were devoted to the practical conquest of the air, and whose methods and
mechanical achievements mark the road of advance by which the
successes of to-day have been obtained, there stand out prominently two
individuals, of whom one has already received mention in these pages.

The period of a single life is seldom sufficient to allow within its
span the full development of any new departure in art or science, and it
cannot, therefore, be wondered at if Charles Green, though reviving and
re-modelling the art of ballooning in our own country, even after an
exceptionally long and successful career, left that pursuit to which he
had given new birth virtually still in its infancy.

The year following that in which Green conducted the famous Nassau
voyage we find him experimenting in the same balloon with his chosen
friend and colleague, Edward Spencer, solicitor, of Barnsbury, who, only
nine years later, compiles memoranda of thirty-four ascents, made under
every variety of circumstance, many being of a highly enterprising
nature. We find him writing enthusiastically of the raptures he
experienced when sailing over London in night hours, of lofty ascents
and extremely low temperatures, of speeding twenty-eight miles in twenty
minutes, of grapnel ropes breaking, and of a cross-country race of four
miles through woods and hedges. Such was Mr. Spencer the elder, and if
further evidence were needed of his prac