A JUMP OUT OF THE CAR IN AMERICA.
Among the numerous newspaper reports which are on my table, are several relative to what, in plain unvarnished English, we should describe as a parachute descent. But the one I allude to was not like Cocking’s, Garnerin’s, Le Turr’s, or Hampton’s, it had a size and peculiarity worth notice.
This American parachute had a very small and possibly inferior covering; it was hardly equal to the man who is sketched with herculean proportions, and required, one would say, a more efficient support, especially as he indulged in no car or wicker protection, but hung earthwards with his hands grasping the hoop.
The descent is described as successful, it was made from a balloon on August 9th, at Rockaway, New York State, U.S.A.
The aëronaut’s name was Thomas S. Baldwin, and he first ascended in his balloon the “City of Quincy,” which rose to a height of over a 1,000 feet, when he grasped the parachute and cut himself adrift from the balloon.
The manœuvre shows a want of aëronautic common sense which the newspaper description of “jumping out of the car” tends to intensify.
The time of his descent was one minute and twenty-four seconds.
It is said, that to the spectators below, a white cloud seemed to fall. For a distance of seventy-five feet the parachute gave no signs of expansion, and it was feared that another death would be added to the roll of those who have made this perilous experiment. Then the umbrella-like mass spread and hung like a white dome over the aëronaut’s head.
It soon rolled in circles with a slight rocking and swaying motion from side to side, until at length Mr. Thomas S. Baldwin was landed, or rather watered, to a depth of only a few feet, apparently none the worse after a renewed acquaintance with his mother earth.