WITH SILHOUETTES BY
GORDON ROSS
PAUL ELDER AND MORGAN SHEPARD
San Francisco
1902
Copyright, 1902
by
George Eli Hall
“Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged animals without feathers lie around us, in horizontal positions; their heads all in night-caps, and full of the foolishest dreams.”
Carlyle: Sartor Resartus.
I.
WE HAD agreed, my companion and I, that I should call for him at his house, after dinner, not later than eleven o’clock.
This athletic young Frenchman belongs to a small set of Parisian sportsmen, who have taken up “ballooning” as a pastime.
After having exhausted all the sensations that are to be found in ordinary sports, even those of “automobiling” at a breakneck speed, the members of the “Aéro Club” now seek in the air, where they indulge in all kinds of daring feats, the nerve-racking excitement that they have ceased to find on earth.