ady been made, accomplished in the
summer of 1802 two aerial voyages marked by extreme velocity in the
rate of travel. The first of these is also remarkable as having been
the first to fairly cross the heart of London. Captain Snowdon, R.N.,
accompanied the aeronaut. The ascent took place from Chelsea Gardens,
and proved so great an attraction that the crowd overflowed into the
neighbouring parts of the town, choking up the thoroughfares with
vehicles, and covering the river with boats. On being liberated, the
balloon sped rapidly away, taking a course midway between the river
and the main highway of the Strand, Fleet Street, and Cheapside, and so
passed from view of the multitude. Such a departure could hardly fail
to lead to subsequent adventures, and this is pithily told in a letter
written by Garnerin himself: "I take the earliest opportunity of
informing you that after a very pleasant journey, but after the most
dangerous descent I ever made, on account of the boisterous weather and
the vicinity of the sea, we alighted at the distance of four miles from
this place and sixty from Ranelagh. We were only three-quarters of an
hour on the way. To-night I intend to be in London with the balloon,
which is torn to pieces. We ourselves are all over bruises."

Only a week after the same aeronaut ascended again from Marylebone, when
he attained almost the same velocity, reaching Chingford, a distance of
seventeen miles, in fifteen minutes.

The chief danger attending a balloon journey in a high wind, supposing
no injury has been sustained in filling and launching, results not so
much from impact with the ground on alighting as from the subsequent
almost inevitable dragging along the ground. The grapnels, spurning the
open, will often obtain no grip save in a hedge or tree, and even then
large boughs will be broken through or dragged away, releasing the
balloon on a fresh career which may, for a while, increase in mad
impetuosity as the emptying silk offers a deeper hollow for the wind to
catch.

The element of risk is of another nature in the case of a night ascent,
when the actual alighting ground cannot be duly chosen or foreseen.
Among many record night ascents may here, somewhat by anticipation
of events, be mentioned two embarked upon by the hero of our last
adventure. M. Garnerin was engaged to make a spectacular ascent from
Tivoli at Paris, leaving the grounds at night with attached lamps
illuminating his balloon. H