out swinging—as he had designed, and insisted
would be the result—when, suddenly,
those who were watching with glasses below,
saw the parachute lean on one side—
then give a lurch to the other—then the
large upper circle collapsed (the disastrous
hollow tin-tubing having evidently broken
up), and the machine entered the upper
part of a cloud: in a few more seconds it
was seen to emerge from the lower part of
the cloud—the whole thing turned over-- and
then, like a closed-up broken umbrella, it shot
straight down to the earth. The unfortunate,
and, as most people regard him, the foolish
enthusiast, was found still in the basket in
which he reached the earth. He was quite
insensible, but uttered a moan; and in ten
minutes he was dead.

Half a word in favour of parachutes. True,
they are of no use "at present;" but who
knows of what use such things may one
day be? As to Mr. Cocking's invention, the
disaster seems to be attributable to errors of
detail, rather than of principle. Mr. Green is
of opinion, from an examination of the broken
latch-cord, combined with other circumstances,
which would require diagrams to describe
satisfactorily, that after Mr. Cocking had
failed to liberate himself the first time, he
twisted the cord round his hand to give a
good jerk, forgetting that in doing so, he
united himself to the balloon above, as it
would be impossible to disengage his hand in
time. By this means he was violently jerked
into his parachute, which broke the latch-cord;
but the tin tube was not able to
bear such a shock, and this caused so serious
a fracture, in addition to its previous unsound
condition, that it soon afterwards collapsed.
This leads one to conjecture that had the
outer rim been made of strong wicker-work,
or whalebone, so as to be somewhat pliable,
and that Mr. Green had liberated the parachute,
instead of Mr. Cocking, it would have
descended to the earth with perfect safety—
skimming the air, instead of the violent oscillations
of the old form of this machine. We
conclude, however, with Mr. Green's laconic—
that the safest parachute is a balloon.

But here we are—still above the clouds!
We may assume that you would not like to be
"let off" in a parachute, even on the improved
principle; we will therefore prepare
for descending with the balloon. This is a
work requiring great skill and care to effect
safely, so as to alight on a suitable piece of
ground, and without any detriment to the
voyagers, the balloon, gardens, crops, &c.

The valve-line is pulled!—out rushes the gas
from the top of the balloon—you see the flag
fly upwards—down through the clouds you
sink faster and faster—lower and lower. Now
you begin to see dark masses below—there's
the Old Earth again—the dark masses now
discover themselves to be little forests, little
towns, tree-tops, house-tops—out goes a shower
of sand from the ballast-bags, and our descent
becomes slower—another shower, and up we
mount again, in search of a better spot to
alight upon. Our guardian aëronaut gives
each of us a bag of ballast, and directs us
to throw out its contents when he calls each
of us by name, and in such quantities only as
he specifies. Moreover, no one is suddenly to
leap out of the balloon, when it touches the
earth; partly because it may cost him his
own life or limbs, and partly because it would
cause the balloon to shoot up again with those
who remained, and so make them lose the
advantage of the good descent already gained,
if nothing worse happened. Meantime, the
grapnel-iron has been lowered, and dangling
down at the end of a strong rope of a hundred
and fifty feet long. It is now trailing over
the ground. Three bricklayers' labourers are
in chase of it. It catches upon a bank—it
tears its way through. Now the three bricklayers
are joined by a couple of fellows in
smock-frocks, a policeman, five boys, followed
by three little girls, and, last of all, a woman
with a child in her arms, all running, shouting,
screaming, and yelling, as the grapnel-iron
and rope go trailing and bobbing over
the ground before them. At last the iron
catches upon a hedge—grapples with its roots;
the balloon is arrested, but struggles hard;
three or four men seize the rope, and down
we are hauled, and held fast till the aerial
Monster, with many a gigantic heave and
pant, surrenders at discretion, and begins to
resign its inflated robust proportions. It subsides
in irregular waves—sinks, puffs, flattens
—dies to a mere shrivelled skin; and being
folded up, like Peter Schlemil's shadow, is put
into a bag, and stowed away at the bottom of
the little car it so recently overshadowed with
its buoyant enormity.

We are glad it is all over; delighted, and
edified as we have been, we are very glad to
take our supper at the solid, firmly-fixed oak
table of a country inn, with a brick wall and
a barn-door for our only prospect, as the
evening closes in. Of etherial currents, and
the scenery of infinite space, we have had
enough for the present.

Touching the accidents which occur to
balloons, we feel persuaded that in the great
majority of cases they are caused by inexperience,
ignorance, rashness, folly, or—more
commonly than all—the necessities attending
a "show." Once "announced" for a certain
day, or night (an abominable practice, which
ought to be prevented)—and, whatever the
of the wind and weather, and whatever
science and the good sense of an experienced
aëronaut may know and suggest of imprudence
—up the poor man must go, simply
because the public have paid their money to see
him do it. He must go, or he will be ruined.

But nothing can more strikingly display the
comparative safety which is attained by great
knowledge, foresight, and care, than the fact
of the veteran, Charles Green, being now in
the four hundred and eighty-ninth year of his