On examination, Green found that the whole weight of the balloon and its appendages was 4,084 pounds thus constituted:
| Balloon, netting and car | 700 | pounds. |
| Ballast | 1,500 | ” |
| Mr. Rush | 145 | ” |
| Mr. Green | 145 | ” |
| Light, grapnel and rope | 52 | ” |
| Cloaks and barometers, &c. | 30 | ” |
| Twenty-seven half-hundredweights slung round the hoop | 1,512 | ” |
| ——— | ||
| Total | 4,084 | ” |
| ====== |
Please to note that Green then opened the upper valve, and discharged a quantity of gas equal to the power of the twenty-seven half-hundredweights, which were then removed from the hoop.
Why, you will ask, was this gas wasted, or put into the balloon? I suppose for the sake of appearances and symmetrical distention, but had Rush not been paymaster, it would most assuredly never have entered.
The departure took place with an ascending power of 112 pounds—very considerable indeed.
Barometer stood at 30·50 just before leaving, and thermometer at 60°; before seven minutes had elapsed, they had fallen, the former to 20, and the latter to 36°, equal to 11,000 feet or two miles.
Had it not been for the miserable aspect the balloon would have presented, more gas would have been let off equal to an additional 1,000 pounds, and then not more than 500 pounds of sand need have been shipped.
At 11,000 feet they were driven south, after going north-east.
Green was continually casting out ballast; on attaining 16,000 feet—three miles—they entered a current blowing at the estimated speed of sixty miles an hour, though they never stated, more’s the pity, how under such a rocket-like rush upwards, they found time to determine that this wonderful current existed.
The only inconvenience (this is noteworthy) Mr. Rush sustained, arose from the constant escape of gas from the rapid ascent.