ed an extended
view on every side, which revealed, however, only the upper unbroken
surface of the dense cloud canopy that lay over all the British Isles.
We could only make a rough guess as to our probable locality. We
knew that our course at starting lay towards the west, and if we were
maintaining that course a travel of scarcely more than sixty miles would
carry us out to the open sea. We had already been aloft for two hours,
and as we were at an altitude at which fast upper currents are commonly
met with, it was high time that, for safety, we should be coming down;
yet it was morally certain that it would be now many hours before
our balloon would commence to descend of its own accord by sheer slow
leakage of gas, by which time, beyond all reasonable doubt, we must
be carried far out over the Atlantic. All we could do was to listen
intently for any sounds that might reach us from earth, and assure us
that we were still over the land; and for a length of time such sounds
were vouchsafed us--the bark of a dog, the lowing of cattle, the ringing
trot of a horse on some hard road far down.

And then, as we were expecting, the sun climbed up into an unsullied
sky, and, mounting by leaps and bounds, we watched the cloud floor
receding beneath us. The effect was extremely beautiful. A description
written to the Times the next morning, while the impression was still
fresh, and from notes made at this period, ran thus:--"Away to an
infinitely distant horizon stretched rolling billows of snowy whiteness,
broken up here and there into seeming icefields, with huge fantastic
hummocks. Elsewhere domes and spires reared themselves above the general
surface, or an isolated Matterhorn towered into space. In some quarters
it was impossible to look without the conviction that we actually beheld
the outline of lofty cliffs overhanging a none too distant sea." Shortly
we began to hear loud reports overhead, resembling small explosions,
and we knew what these were--the moist, shrunken netting was giving out
under the hot sun and yielding now and again with sudden release to the
rapidly expanding gas. It was, therefore, with grave concern, but with
no surprise, that when we next turned to the aneroid we found the index
pointing to 9,000 feet, and still moving upwards.

Hour after hour passed by, and, sounds having ceased to reach us, it
remains uncertain whether or no we were actually carried out to sea
and headed back again by contrary