e balloon for this purpose
had been partially filled overnight; but by the morning the wind blew
strongly, and, though the ground current would have carried the voyagers
in comparative safety to the southwest, several pilots which were
dismissed became, at no great height, carried away due south. On this
account the start was delayed till 1 p.m., by which time the sky had
nearly filled in, with only occasional gleams of sun between the clouds.
It seemed as if the travellers would have to face the chance of
crossing the Channel, and while, already in the car, they were actually
discussing this point, their restraining rope broke, and they were
launched unceremoniously into the skies. This occasioned an unexpected
lurch to the car, which threw Mr. Glaisher among his instruments, to the
immediate destruction of some of them.

Another result of this abrupt departure was a very rapid rise, which
took the balloon a height of 3,000 feet in three minutes' space, and
another 4,000 feet higher in six minutes more. Seven thousand feet
vertically in nine minutes is fast pace; but the voyagers were to know
higher speed yet that day when the vertical motion was to be in the
reverse and wrong direction. At the height now reached they were in
cloud, and while thus enveloped the temperature, as often happens,
remained practically stationary at about 32 degrees, while that of the
dew point increased several degrees. But, on passing out of the cloud,
the two temperatures were very suddenly separated, the latter decreasing
rapidly under a deep blue upper sky that was now without a cloud.
Shortly after this the temperature dropped suddenly some 8 degrees, and
then, during the next 12,000 feet, crept slowly down by small stages.
Presently the balloon, reaching more than twenty thousand feet, or,
roughly, four miles, and still ascending, the thermometer was taken with
small fits of rising and falling alternately till an altitude of
24,000 feet was recorded, at which point other and more serious matters
intruded themselves.

The earth had been for a considerable time lost to view, and the rate
and direction of recent progress had become merely conjectural. What
might be taking place in these obscured and lofty regions? It would be
as well to discover. So the valve was opened rather freely, with the
result that the balloon dropped a mile in three minutes. Then another
mile slower, by a shade. Then at 12,000 feet a cloud layer was reached,
and