you! Ah, you are thinking of the fate of poor
Cocking, the enthusiast in parachutes, concerning
whom, and his fatal "improvement,"
the public is satisfied that it knows everything,
from the one final fact- that he was
killed. But there is something more than
that in it, as we fancy.

Two words against parachutes. In the
first place, there is no use to which, at present,
they can be applied; and, in the
second, they are so unsafe as to be likely, in
all cases, to cost a life for each descent. In
the concise words of Mr. Green, we should
say—"the best parachute is a balloon; the
others are bad things to have to deal with."

Mr. Cocking, as we have said, was an
enthusiast in parachutes. He felt sure he
had discovered a new, and the true, principle.
All parachutes, before his day, had been constructed
to descend in a concave form, like
that of an open umbrella; the consequence of
which was, that the parachute descended with
a violent swinging from side to side, which
sometimes threw the man in the basket in
almost a horizontal position. Mr. Cocking
conceived that the converse form; viz., an
inverted cone (of large dimensions), would
remedy this evil; and becoming convinced,
we suppose, by some private experiments
with models, he agreed to descend on a certain
day. The time was barely adequate to
his construction of the parachute, and did not
admit of such actual experiments with a
sheep, or pig, or other animal, as prudence
would naturally have suggested. Besides the
want of time, however, Cocking equally
wanted prudence; he felt sure of his new
principle; this new form of parachute was
the hobby of his life, and up he went on the
appointed day (for what aëronaut shall dare
to "disappoint the Public?")—dangling by
a rope, fifty feet long, from the bottom of the
car of Mr. Green's great Nassau Balloon.

The large upper rim of the parachute, in
imitation, we suppose, of the hollow bones of
a bird, was made of hollow tin—a most inapplicable
and brittle material; and besides
this, it had two fractures. But Mr. Cocking
was not to be deterred; convinced of the
truth of his discovery, up he would go. Mr.
Green was not equally at ease, and positively
refused to touch the latch of the "liberating
iron," which was to detach the parachute from
the balloon. Mr. Cocking arranged to do
this himself, for which means he procured a
piece of new cord of upwards of fifty feet in
length, which was fastened to the latch above
in the car, and led down to his hand in the
basket of the parachute. Up they went to a
great height, and disappeared among the
clouds.

Mr. Green had taken up one friend with
him in the car; and, knowing well what
would happen the instant so great a weight
as the parachute and man were detached, he
had provided a small balloon inside the car,
filled with atmospheric air, with two mouth-pieces.
They were now upwards of a mile
high.

"How do you feel, Mr. Cocking?" called
out Green. "Never better, or more delighted
in my life," answered Cocking. Though
hanging at fifty feet distance, in the utter
silence of that region, every accent was easily
heard. "But, perhaps you will alter your
mind?" suggested Green. "By no means,"
cried Cocking; " but how high are we?"—
"Upwards of a mile."—"I must go higher, Mr.
Green—I must be taken up two miles before
I liberate the parachute." Now, Mr. Green,
having some regard for himself and his friend,
as well as for poor Cocking, was determined
not to do any such thing. After some farther
colloquy, therefore, during which Mr. Green
threw out a little more ballast, and gained a
little more elevation, he finally announced that
he could go no higher, as he now needed all
the ballast he had for their own safety in the
balloon. "Very well," said Cocking, "if you
really will not take me any higher, I shall say
good-bye."

At this juncture Green called out, "Now,
Mr. Cocking, if your mind at all misgives
you about your parachute, I have provided a
tackle up here, which I can lower down to
you, and then wind you up into the car by
my little grapnel-iron windlass, and nobody
need be the wiser."—"Certainly not," cried
Cocking; "thank you all the same. I shall
now make ready to pull the latch-cord."
Finding he was determined, Green and his
friend both crouched down in the car, and
took hold of the mouth-pieces of their little air-balloon.
"All ready?" called out Cocking.
"All ready!" answered the veteran aëronaut
above. "Good night, Mr. Green!"- "Good
night, Mr. Cocking!"—"A pleasant voyage
to you, Mr. Green—good night!"

There was a perfect silence—a few seconds
of intense suspense—and then the aëronauts
in the car felt a jerk upon the latch. It had
not been forcible enough to open the liberating
iron. Cocking had failed to detach the
parachute. Another pause of horrid silence
ensued.

Then came a strong jerk upon the latch,
and, in an instant, the great balloon shot upwards
with a side-long swirl, like a wounded
serpent. They saw their flag clinging flat down
against the flag-staff, while a torrent of gas
rushed down upon them through the aperture
in the balloon above their heads, and continued
to pour down into the car for a length of
time that would have suffocated them but
for the judgmatic provision of the little balloon
of atmospheric air, to the mouth-pieces of
which their own mouths were fixed, as they
crouched down at the bottom of the car. Of
Mr. Cocking's fate, or the result of his experiment,
they had not the remotest knowledge.
They only knew the parachute was gone!

The termination of Mr. Cooking's experiment
is well known. For a few seconds
he descended quickly, but steadily, and with-