eronautics, has been perfected, and
some due sketch of the career of this family of eminent aeronauts must
be no longer delayed.

Charles Green had stood godfather to the youngest son of his friend
and colleague, Mr. Edward Spencer, and in later years, as though to
vindicate the fact, this same son took up the science of aeronautics at
the point where his father had left it. We find his name in the records
of the Patent Office of 1868 as the inventor of a manumetric flying
machine, and there are accounts of the flying leaps of several
hundred feet which he was enabled to take by means of the machine he
constructed. Again, in 1882 we find him an inventor, this time of the
patent asbestos fire balloon, by means of which the principal danger to
such balloons was overcome.

At this point it is needful to make mention of the third generation--the
several sons who early showed their zeal and aptitude for perpetuating
the family tradition. It was from his school playground that the eldest
son, Percival, witnessed with intense interest what appeared like a drop
floating in the sky at an immense altitude. This proved to be Simmons's
balloon, which had just risen to a vast elevation over Cremorne Gardens,
after having liberated the unfortunate De Groof, as mentioned in a
former chapter. And one may be sure that the terrible reality of the
disaster that had happened was not lost on the young schoolboy. But his
wish was to become an aeronauts, and from this desire nothing deterred
him, so that school days were scarcely over before he began to accompany
his father aloft, and in a very few years, i.e. in 1888, he had assumed
the full responsibilities of a professional balloonist.

It was in this year that Professor Baldwin appeared in England, and it
is easy to understand that the parachute became an object of interest to
the young Spencer, who commenced on his own account a series of trials
at the Alexandra Palace, and it was now, also, that chance good fortune
came his way. An Indian gentleman, who was witness of his experiments,
and convinced that a favourable field for their further development
existed in his own country, proposed to the young aspirant that he
should accompany him to India, with equipment suited for the making of a
successful campaign.

Thus it came about that in the early days of 1889, in the height of the
season, Mr. Percival Spencer arrived at Bombay, and at once commenced
professional business in earnest.