Coxwell.
Glaisher.
The balloon rose high above London, and the party were amazed and delighted with the strange and lovely view of the great city by night, all sight of the houses being lost in the darkness, and the thousands of gas lamps, outlining the invisible streets and bridges, twinkling like stars in a blue-black sky. Coxwell was sitting, not in the car, but in the ring of the balloon, and presently, when they were about 7000 feet above the town, he noticed that the silk, the mouth of which appears to have been fastened, was growing dangerously distended with the expanding gas. By his advice the valve was immediately pulled, but it was already too late; the balloon burst, the gas escaped with a noise like the escape of steam from an engine, the silk collapsed, and the balloon began to descend with appalling speed, the immense mass of loose silk surging and rustling frightfully overhead. Everything was immediately thrown out of the car to break the fall; but the wind still seemed to be rushing past at a fearful rate, and, to add to the horror of the aeronauts, they now came down through the remains of the discharged fireworks floating in the air. Little bits of burning cases and still smouldering touch-paper blew about them, and were caught in the rigging. These kindled into sparks, and there seemed every chance of the whole balloon catching alight. They were still a whole mile from the ground, and this distance they appear to have covered in less than two minutes. The house-tops seemed advancing up towards them with awful speed as they neared earth. In the end they were tossed out of the car along the ground, and it appeared a perfect marvel to them all that they escaped with only a severe shaking. This adventure did not in the least abate Coxwell’s ardour for ballooning, and exactly a week later he and Gypson successfully made the same ascent from the same place, and in the same balloon—and loaded with twice the number of fireworks!
But Coxwell’s most celebrated voyage of all took place some years later, on the occasion of a scientific voyage made in company with Mr. James Glaisher. In 1862 the British Association determined to continue the balloon observations which Mr. Welsh had so successfully commenced, but this time on a larger scale. The observer was to be Mr. Glaisher of Greenwich Observatory, and Mr. Coxwell, who by this time had become a recognised aeronaut, undertook the management of the balloon. The first ascents were made in July and August. Mr. Glaisher took up a most elaborate and costly outfit of instruments, which, however, were badly damaged at the outset during a very rapid descent, made perforce to avoid falling in the “Wash.” On each occasion a height of over four miles was attained; but on the third voyage, which was in September, it was decided to try and reach yet greater altitudes.
The balloon with its two passengers left Wolverhampton at 1 P.M.—the temperature on the ground being 59°. At about a mile high a dense cloud was entered, and the thermometer fell to 36°. In nineteen minutes a height of two miles was reached, and the air was at freezing-point. Six minutes later they were three miles aloft, with the thermometer still falling; and by the time four miles high was attained the mercury registered only 8°.
In forty-seven minutes from the start five miles had been passed; and now the temperature was 2° below zero. Mr. Coxwell, who was up in the ring of the balloon and exerting himself over the management of it, found he was beginning to breathe with great difficulty. Mr. Glaisher, sitting quietly in the car watching his instruments, felt no inconvenience. More ballast was thrown out, and the balloon continued to rise apace; and soon Mr. Glaisher found his eyes growing strangely dim. He could not see to read his thermometer, or distinguish the hands of his watch. He noticed the mercury of the barometer, however, and saw that a height of 29,000 feet had been reached, and the balloon was still rising. What followed next had best be told in Mr. Glaisher’s own words:—
“Shortly after I laid my arm upon the table, possessed of its full vigour, but on being desirous of using it, I found it useless. Trying to move the other arm, I found it powerless also. Then I tried to shake myself and succeeded, but I seemed to have no limbs. In looking at the barometer my head fell over my left shoulder. I struggled and shook my body again, but could not move my arms. Getting my head upright for an instant only, it fell on my right shoulder; then I fell backwards, my body resting against the side of the car, and my head on the edge. I dimly saw Mr. Coxwell and endeavoured to speak, but could not. In an instant intense darkness overcame me; but I was still conscious, with as active a brain as at the present moment while writing this. I thought I had been seized with asphyxia, and believed I should experience nothing more, as death would come unless we speedily descended. Other thoughts were entering my mind, when I suddenly became unconscious as on going to sleep.” Mr. Glaisher adds: “I cannot tell anything of the sense of hearing, as no sound reaches the ear to break the perfect stillness and silence of the regions between six and seven miles above the earth.”
Meanwhile, as stated, Mr. Coxwell was up in the ring, trying to secure the valve-line, which had become twisted. To do this he had taken off a pair of thick gloves he had been wearing, and in the tremendous cold of that awful region the moment his bare hands rested on the metal of the ring they became frost-bitten and useless. Looking down, he saw Mr. Glaisher in a fainting condition, and called out to him, but received no answer. Thoroughly alarmed by this time, he tried to come down to his companion’s assistance; but now his hands also had become lifeless, and he felt unconsciousness rapidly stealing over him.
Quickly realising that death to both of them would speedily follow if the balloon continued to ascend, Mr. Coxwell now endeavoured to pull the valve-line; but he found it impossible to do so with his disabled hands. Fortunately he was a man of great bodily strength, as well as of iron nerve, and by a great effort he succeeded in catching the valve-line in his teeth. Then, putting his whole weight upon it, he managed to pull open the valve, and hold it until the balloon took a decided turn downwards. This saved them. As lower regions were reached, where the air was denser, Mr. Glaisher began to recover, and by the time they came to the ground neither of these two brave men were any the worse for their extraordinary experience.