The balloon rose rapidly, and stopped at twelve hundred yards. I became colder; and yet the sun’s rays, falling upon the surface, expanded the gas within, and gave it a greater ascending force.
“Fear nothing,” said the unknown. “We have still three thousand five hundred fathoms of breathing air. Besides, do not trouble yourself about what I do.”
I would have risen, but a vigorous hand held me to my seat.
“Your name?” I asked.
“My name? What matters it to you?”
“I demand your name!”
“My name is Erostratus or Empedocles, whichever you choose!”
This reply was far from reassuring.
The unknown, besides, talked with such strange coolness that I anxiously asked myself whom I had to deal with.
“Monsieur,” he continued, “nothing original has been imagined since the physicist Charles. Four months after the discovery of balloons, this able man had invented the valve, which permits the gas to escape when the balloon is too full, or when you wish to descend; the car, which aids the management of the machine; the netting, which holds the envelope of the balloon, and divides the weight over its whole surface; the ballast, which enables you to ascend, and to choose the place of your landing; the india-rubber coating, which renders the tissue impermeable; the barometer, which shows the height attained. Lastly, Charles used hydrogen, which, fourteen times lighter than air, permits you to penetrate to the highest atmospheric regions, and does not expose you to the dangers of a combustion in the air. On the 1st of December, 1783, three hundred thousand spectators were crowded around the Tuileries. Charles rose, and the soldiers presented arms to him. He travelled nine leagues in the air, conducting his balloon with an ability not surpassed by modern aeronauts. The king awarded him a pension of two thousand livres; for then they encouraged new inventions.”