BALLOON VOYAGE FROM LONDON TO NASSAU.
On Monday, November 7, 1836, Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Robert Holland accompanied Mr. Green in his large balloon from London to Weilburg, in the grand duchy of Nassau, in Germany, an extent of 500 British miles, achieved in the short space of eighteen hours. The route lay through a considerable portion of the five kingdoms of England, France, Belgium, Prussia, Germany, and the Archduchy of Nassau; whilst a long succession of cities, including London, Rochester, Canterbury, Dover, Calais, Cassel, Ypres, Courtray, Lille, Oudenarde, Ath, and Brussels, (with the renowned fields of Waterloo and Genappe,) Namur, Liege, Spa, Malmedy, Coblentz, and a whole host of intermediate villages, were all brought within the compass of the aeronauts' horizon; their superior elevation and various aberrations enabling them to extend far beyond what might be expected from a hasty consideration of the line connecting the two extremities of the route. The voyagers returned to London by steam, and Mr. Monck Mason afterwards published an interesting narrative of the æronautical voyage.
The appearance which the balloon exhibited previous to the ascent was very strange. Provisions calculated for a fortnight's consumption, in case of emergency; ballast to the amount of upwards of a ton in weight, disposed in bags of different sizes, duly registered and marked; together with an unusual supply of cordage, implements, and other accessories to an aërial excursion, occupied the bottom of the car: while, all around the hoop, and elsewhere appended, hung cloaks, carpet-bags, barrels of wood and copper, a coffee-warmer by means of slaked lime, barometers, telescopes, lamps, wine and spirit flasks, with many other articles designed to serve the purposes of a voyage to regions where, once forgotten, nothing could be supplied.
ANTIQUITY OF REFINED SUGAR.
It appears from the accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland, published from the originals in the Exchequer, that in the year 1329, loaves of sugar were sold in Scotland at the price of 1s. 9-1/2d. (more than an ounce of standard silver) per lb. Stow's Survey of London states sugar refining to have been commenced in England about 1544; and upwards of four centuries since we find Margaret Paston writing to her husband from Norwich thus:—"I pray, that ye will vouchsafe to send me another sugar-loaf, for my old one is done."